Updated 03/20/23
Our clinicians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and have received at least one booster shot. The majority of our staff have been vaccinated as well.
We encourage everyone to get the COVID vaccine as well as the new Omicron booster
Per State issued guidelines, masks are not required in our building. Patients are free to make their own choice on whether or not they would like to be masked in our space. We will continue to take temperatures for all individuals who enter our space.
We are open for visits from all patients via telemedicine or on-site. We do ask that patients who wish to visit us on-site adhere to the following guidelines:
• Have worn PPE (personal protective equipment, i.e. a face mask of some sort) while interacting with individuals outside your household if you are not yet fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
• Have not been ill in any way (fever, loss of taste or smell, or eye, nasal, throat, chest, or GI symptoms) in the past 5 days.
• Have not been in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID in the last 7 days.
We have redoubled our already-meticulous cleanliness and virus protection strategies.
We are taking extraordinary precautions to protect your health and well-being as always and in keeping with current recommendations of the CDC. We use state-of-the-art sterilization/high-level disinfection for all of our instruments and sanitize exam rooms between patients.
To further reassure you, please note that Bastian Voice Institute is a tertiary-care facility for voice, swallowing, and airway disorders. Clinicians here therefore do not normally evaluate and treat persons with acute upper respiratory infection.
We do, however, have a large population of patients who cough not due to infection but instead as a result of a non-contagious neurological disorder of sensation called sensory neuropathic cough. If you happen to hear “coughing” or frequent throat clearing in our space, sometimes of an impressive nature, that person is not ill. Instead, he or she is experiencing a tickling sensation from nerve damage that is in turn initiating cough.