Several months ago, my wife and I went to a new dentist who took quite a few digital x-rays. We did have some work done using this dentist, but we later became unhappy with him and his service. We want to look for a new dentist, but we don’t want to pay for new x-rays.
How would this be normally handled - do we have a right to have the pics transferred to a new dentist?
Also, I assume that since the pics are digital, the new dentist would also have to have a digital system in place to view them. Is this correct?
The only time this has been an issue for me, I was told that my x-rays were mine. A local dentist was offering a free consultation, which I availed myself of. When I found out that I needed more work than I could reasonably afford, I told them that I was going to go get the work done at UCLA to save money. So I asked for my x-rays, and they gave them to me. YMMV, of course.
I’ve never had a problem getting the film to take to another professional. You can have the other dentists office request them if you feel uncomfortable asking for them.
Rules may vary by state, but in general, your dental records, including x-rays (like your medical records) are the property of the person who compiled/created them. In this circumstance, that would be your dentist.
However, as a health record, certain other matters relate; primarily that you have access to those records (you may need to pay for copies, or review the actual records under supervision, to prevent altering/deleting), that they be shared freely without a fee to other health care professionals who require them (like your new dentist), and so forth.
So your old dentist should, upon receiving a request from your new dentist, copy your entire dental record, including making copies of any requested x-rays, and send them off to your new dentist.
(Your signature/release is NOT required for this sort of transaction; people horribly misunderstand HIPAA and think a patient must authorize a release of records. But that’s a whole 'nuther thread, and the level of ignorance about what HIPAA does and doesn’t require makes my head hurt.)
This is correct in my state of Florida as well. The entity that takes and processes the film, owns the film. Of course as a patient you are entitled to copies upon request. Usually there is no charge if they are copied on disk but if you want hard copies, there is a fee for that. It is the same with your medical records. You can’t go in and take the entire chart but you can get copies of the entire chart. The information is yours, not the actual hard copies of that information.
I think the problem here is the ‘digital x-rays’ - I’m having a similar problem, hence would love to hear the solution!
I went to a new dentist recently when I finally got a dental plan (hadn’t had an appointment in 7 years and knew I needed some work). He took a whole set of digital x-rays, but then turned out to be a terrible dentist (another story). When I tried to have his x-rays transferred to another dentist, he would only send paper copies of the digital x-rays to the new dentist. I asked him if he could transfer them electronically, but he said that ‘policy’ was that they could only send paper copies. These were, of course, useless to the new dentist because of lack of detail, so I ended up paying full price for limited film x-rays on the tooth that was hurting me. The new dentist fixed my painful tooth, but in the process revealed himself as quite the perv (yet another story).
Am I at square one again, like Fritz? What’s the dope on digital x-rays? I remember years ago getting those strips from one dentist and toting them to another, them sticking them on the light box and there being no problem.
Question: what’s the real deal with digital dental x-rays?
Can’t they burn you a CD? Whenever I have needed PET, CT, or Digital XRays, the Medical Records folks at the hospital are able to create a CD for the receiving doctor to use.
On a related subject, copies of files, I work for an aerospace contractor. Our product drawing are created IAW a production or research contract. We are paid for the creation of the graphic product. One of our customers wanted copies of all the drawing for a particular product and was told that there would be a charge for same. They said that they had paid for the drawings to be created and shouldn’t have to pay. We responded that the charge was for the reproduction of the originals and not for the data. Agreement was reached.
I think that the medical issue is similar in that if you want physical copies that there could be a charge for the service.
IIRC, the doctor/dentist/hospital whatever needs to keep your records by law.
I’ve never had a problem getting copies of my x-rays, records, eyeglass prescriptions, etc . Sometimes I have had to pay a small copying fee.
I once worked for an attorney who did quite a number of medical malpractice cases and we were constantly requesting and reviewing copies of medical records and such. Originals were to be brought to court, IIRC, if and when the case came to court.
This is a question that has not really been addressed yet, I think. How are digital x-rays normally exported, and can a dentist/doctor that does not have digital x-ray technology use them? Can they be printed to film?
Also, how are copies normally provided - on optical disc? Are the files a standard graphics format (jpg, bmp, tiff, etc.) or are they specific to the exact system that created them?
I can’t speak to dental x-rays, but my mom got a CD of her recent ultrasound of her legs (looking for blood clots) and we were able to open and view the images on my computer at home. Really neat, even if I couldn’t interpret the results!
I think the format depends on where the records are from. I’ve worked in medical administration in the past, where we often had to request copies of patient records from different sources.
Sometimes electronic copies of patient records are in standard formats like a .jpg - if it was a picture or a scanned copy of the chart.
Sometimes we’d get records from a hospital (especially if it was diagnostic imaging) where the CD included a specialized program that ran off of the CD (can’t think of the right term right now - you didn’t have to install the program in order to run it). That way you could easily view the x-ray/MRI/ultrasound/whatever images in the same high-res format that the hospital uses, but without having to install special software.
I looked at the CD again. It says it includes the software to open the images: “something something autoplay” just like Waenara said. Makes sense that it would do so.
Thanks, Cub Mistress, that’s encouraging. It implies that digital copies (on CD-R or DVD-R) could be used by an office that doesn’t have digital x-ray technology.