[golferling]

I was a patient of Dr. Kathryn Williams from 2004-2007 at Southern Trace Dental. She left that practice and opened her own practice, known as Palm Ridge Dental ( in the Buffalo Ridge complex) about 2 years ago. Since I liked the hygienist at Southern Trace, I was slow to change. Today, I officially transferred over to Palm Ridge. Dr. Williams is great, and I had a wonderful hygienist named Kathy. I called my old place to pick up my records, and when I went to Southern Trace dentistry to pick them up, they gave me some papers of my last visits and paper printed X-rays, and charged me 26. dollars...for my own records. Interesting. Has anyone else had to pay to get their records? The receptionist at Southern Trace told me the new owner had to purchase my records as part of the business, and that "everyone does it." Mmmm...this was news to all the staff at Palm Ridge Dental. They do not do it, just for your information...
Do you all know about charging for records? With everything on computer, too, I thought they would give me a disk..nope, just papers from a printer.

[wmchale]

I Just moved here from NH.

I had both my dental and medical records transferd at no charge.

Both groups told me the first one is free however after this it is a dollar a page.

[Avista]

We had to pay $25 for copy of XRays when we changed dentists.

[Mikitv]

That is shocking having to pay for the x-rays after you already paid for them once and I thought legally they are your records too. I guess the dentist can't make enough money on their services so they charge for someone to print out your records from the computer and possibly copy your x-rays if they don't have digital. I worked as consultant in the dental field for over 40 years and I would never recommend a dentist charge for records unless it was a legal case. Customer service like that is probably why patients choose to leave. IMHO

[obxgal]

Before we came down in 07 from NC we went to our dentist and doctors told them we were moving to FL and requested all our records. They handed them all over at no charge.

[golf79]

Don't really care about the records charge as that's a one time deal. More interested in ongoing pricing practices; i.e., How much do they charge for a cleaning? When you get a cleaning do they REQUIRE Bite Wing x rays each year and if so what do they charge? Also do they have the Dentist stick His/Her fingers in your mouth for 2 minutes on a cleaning visit so that they can charge you an additional examination fee? If so, how much. I'm getting a bit tired of this sort of FLUFF at my current Dental Office.

[Talk Host]

You may all be surprise to know this, but X rays do not belong to you. The fee you pay is for a person to look at your bones or teeth and analyze what may be wrong with them. The films are the property of the doctor/owner of the x ray machine. If you wish to purchase the xrays, you have to pay for them. Some doctors do not charge for them, most do.

If you take a picture of Sumter Landing, who owns the picture, you or the owners of The Villages?