Starting Monday, Ohio will enter Phase I of Governor DeWine’s plan to reopen the state. Although they’ve been allowed to reopen since Friday, many physicians have waited to reopen and plan to start the process slowly and with plenty of caution.
Reopening medical offices will require constantly sanitizing surfaces, wearing masks and still maintaining social distancing when possible — not an easy feat for every physician to manage in their respective offices.
“It’s going to be a new world,” said Dr. Mark Hagee, an optometrist with Ritter and Hagee Optometrists. “It’s definitely not going to be business as usual.”
Hagee said their plan is to limit access to the office entirely, having patients fill out medical history forms outside, in their cars, before they enter the office. They’ll also be taking patient temperatures and screening all visitors for COVID-19 symptoms, he said.
Perhaps the biggest challenge will be using the technology available to them to keep their distance from patients during eye exams.
“You can evaluate the internal contents of the eye quite well just by sitting at a computer,” said Hagee. “We can see the entire retina just with that.”
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