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Professional Courtesy Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

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Are Your Patients Free to Leave?


Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD
Editorial Director,
Dentaltown Magazine
 Do you consider X-ray duplication a profit center in your practice? Is the fee some secret ploy to get patients to stay in your practice? Do you get some sick satisfaction of charging your departing patients one more fee before they leave your practice? Do you really think it takes that much time to send a proper set of current X-rays to your old patient's new provider? Stop the insanity!

Charging a fee to duplicate X-rays is an outdated concept. In the old days, duplication of X-rays required special film, a light box, processing chemistry and your assistant's time. This is 2009, people! Whether or not you have digital X-ray sensors in the practice, duplicating images is not that difficult.

To the practice that has digital X-ray sensors: stop printing your images on office paper. The quality is poor and you are wasting ink. Start sending your images via e-mail, or if the new dentist does not have e-mail, send your patient images on a CD-ROM.

If you are still using film X-rays, invest in a scanner with a transparency attachment that will allow you to scan X-rays. It takes about one minute to scan your X-rays this way, and you don't need to remove them from the mount. The result is an image that can be adjusted 100 different ways and shared with a dentist anywhere in the world.

In our office, we send X-rays two ways. First, we will use e-mail whenever possible. Second, we will send the X-rays on photo paper with a sticker attached that reads, "If you would like digital copies of these images please send an e-mail to [our email]." It is a small demonstration to the new dentist, that we are happy our patient has a new home, and we want the transition to be smooth. Several of my transfer patients have come to my office angry and resentful of their former dentist because they could not obtain copies of their X-rays without paying a fee. What's more important: a $20 fee, or the final impression you make on this person as he/she leaves your practice?

If you are using HIPAA as your excuse to not send X-rays via e-mail, dig deeper, that's not a reason. Patient information can be shared with other providers, provided you have the patient's permission and this is something you have always needed to transfer records. Some providers like to send the X-rays in a password-protected attachment and then contact the receiving office via telephone with the password. Another option is to give your patients their information on CD-ROM; after all the records do belong to the patient. I will provide my standard disclaimer here – as with all regulatory questions, consult your local attorney. I am not an attorney; I am sharing a few common sense opinions on this topic.

If you don't have the Internet, find out why? This is the phone line of the 21st century; it is a necessary part of doing business. Aside from the issue of sharing information with your colleagues, the Internet provides access to information, the ability to communicate with your patients instantly and it's a conduit to improve the efficiency of your practice. When you have Internet and an office e-mail account in place, spend the time to be certain your staff knows how to use it. I have called offices looking for copies of their digital X-rays only to be told they don't know how to e-mail the images or they can't access the Internet. When you do business in your community, pay attention to all of the different ways that technology is used to improve your experience and put it into your practice on Monday morning!

If my message has sufficiently poked your brain or if there's a topic you would like me to discuss in a future column, please send me an e-mail: tom@dentaltown.com.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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