How to Get Your Dental Records From a Previous Dentist

Last updated 2026-08-15

Your dental records belong to you — including the x-rays. If you are switching dentists, getting a second opinion, or you just want your own history in your own hands, a previous office has to give you a copy. Here is what you are entitled to, how long it takes, and the fastest way to ask.

The one-button way

A Dental Passport does the asking for you. You pick the office, tick what you want, and type your name — the signed request goes out by email with a fax fallback, and whatever the office sends back lands in your passport instead of a folder on a desk somewhere.

1. Create your free Dental Passport

   It takes an email address and about a minute. The passport is free for patients and it is yours, not the practice’s.

2. Open Health History and tap “Request records”

   One button. You do not need a form, a template, or a printer.

3. Find the office that holds your chart

   Search by name and state and pick it from the national provider directory. Picking it supplies the office’s registered fax and address, so the request goes through even when you cannot remember an email. You can also type the details in yourself.

4. Choose records, x-rays, or both

   Tick what you want. Ask for the x-rays explicitly — they are the part most often left out.

5. Type your name to sign

   Your typed signature goes onto a HIPAA right-of-access request naming you as the recipient, which is sent to the office along with a secure upload link.

Create a free passport and request your records

Free for patients. Your passport is encrypted, and nothing is shared with any dental office unless you grant it.

What you are actually entitled to

The HIPAA Right of Access (45 CFR §164.524) covers the record a provider holds about you. In a dental office that usually means:

• Chart notes and treatment history — what was diagnosed, what was done, and when.
• Radiographs — bitewings, periapicals, panoramic images, and any CBCT volume.
• Perio charting — pocket depths and the history behind a gum-disease diagnosis.
• Treatment plans — including work that was proposed but never done.
• Ledgers and insurance history — what was billed, paid, and denied.

Two limits worth knowing. The right covers the record itself, not the dentist's private psychotherapy notes (rare in dentistry) or material compiled for a lawsuit. And a practice keeps its own copy — you are getting a copy, not removing anything from their files.

How long it takes, and what it can cost

The rule is 30 days, with one 30-day extension if the office explains the delay in writing. In practice most offices are quicker, and a request that arrives already signed — with somewhere obvious to upload the files — tends to come back fastest, because nobody has to call you back to sort out paperwork first.

On money: an office may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee for copying and postage. It may not charge you for the labor of searching for your chart, and it may not hold your records hostage over an unpaid treatment balance. Those are two different debts, and only one of them is legally connected to your record.

Why the x-rays are the hard part

This is the piece people get stuck on. No dental practice-management system exposes the actual image pixels through an interface another system can read — the images live inside the imaging software on the office's own machines. There is no clever way around that: the only way your prior x-rays ever reach you is for the office holding them to send the files.

Which is why it is worth asking for them by name. A request for "my records" is often answered with chart notes only, and you find out at your new dentist's office — usually right before they retake images you already had. A full-mouth series or a CBCT scan is also large enough that email frequently rejects it, so the request includes a secure upload link that can take the whole volume.

If you would rather ask them yourself

You do not need a passport to do this — you can write to the office directly, and a valid right-of-access request is short. Include:

• Your full name, date of birth, and the phone number the office has on file.
• The date range you want, or simply "the complete record."
• An explicit line asking for radiographs and images, not just chart notes.
• Where to send it — your email address, or the new dentist's — and in what format.
• A sentence stating this is a request under your HIPAA right of access, plus your signature and the date.

Send it to the office manager or the privacy officer, keep a copy, and note the date — that is when the 30 days starts. If a month passes with no answer, you can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, which enforces this right and has taken action against providers who ignored it.

"Do I need a HIPAA release form?"

This is the step most people get stuck on, usually because an office told them to come in and sign one. It is worth knowing that a HIPAA release and a HIPAA right-of-access request are two different instruments, and for getting your own records you almost always want the second one.

• A right-of-access request (45 CFR §164.524) is you asking for your own record. It has to be in writing, but it does not have to be on the office's form, and the office cannot make you appear in person to hand it over.
• A release / authorization (45 CFR §164.508) is you permitting the office to disclose your record to somebody else — another dentist, an attorney, an insurer. That is the right form when you want records sent directly to a third party.

Practices frequently ask for their own release form in both situations out of habit. You can sign it if it moves things along — but an office cannot use its paperwork as a barrier to a right-of-access request, and being asked to drive in to sign something is not a requirement you have to accept. Sending a properly signed right-of-access request up front usually skips the argument entirely, which is what the button above does for you.

Once you have them

Records that live in your email eventually get lost in it. Inside a passport they stay in one place you control: readable on your phone, revocable when you change your mind, and with an access log showing every time someone opened them. When you walk into a new office, the history walks in with you — instead of starting over on a clipboard.

You can also send them onward. From a passport you can deliver a records packet to any office — a new dentist, a specialist, anyone you choose — by email or fax, picking which sections go and without the receiving office needing an account or any software. The packet is digitally signed, so they can verify it came from your passport rather than trusting a forwarded email.

Common questions

Create your free Dental Passport

This page explains a patient right under U.S. federal law in general terms. It is information, not legal advice, and state law can add protections on top of it.