7 min read • By Dr. Kevin Baharvand, DMD, MS • Updated August 2026
The short answer
You do not need permission to switch dentists, and you do not owe anyone an explanation. Call the old office, ask them to send your records and most recent x-rays to the new one, and book. The records are yours. Most offices email them within a few days. The only real planning involved is timing it so you are not paying twice for x-rays and not leaving insurance benefits unused at the end of the year.
Frisco adds people faster than almost anywhere in the country, which means a large share of the patients walking into any office here were somebody else patient last year, often in another state.
Most of them arrive with the same two worries. Am I going to have to start over from scratch, and is this new office going to find a pile of problems the old one never mentioned.
Neither has to be true. Avoiding both takes about ten minutes of preparation.
On this page
Your records belong to you
This is the part people get wrong. You do not need to explain why you are leaving, you do not need the old dentist to approve anything, and you do not have to go anywhere in person to collect a file.
Call or email the previous office and ask them to send your records and most recent radiographs to the new practice. Give them the new office name, address, and email. You are entitled to copies of your own records, and offices handle these requests constantly. It is not a confrontation.
The x-rays are the part worth chasing. A full set is not something to repeat six months after the last one, and having the old images gives the new dentist something to compare against, which is more useful than any single snapshot.
What to bring to the first visit
Short list, and each item saves you something.
| Bring this | Why it matters | If you skip it |
|---|---|---|
| Insurance card, or the plan name and group number | So the office verifies benefits before treatment rather than after | You get an estimate based on guesses |
| The date of your last x-rays | Determines whether new images are needed at all | You may pay for a set you did not need |
| Current medications, including supplements | Several affect bleeding, healing, and dry mouth | Avoidable complications during treatment |
| Your night guard or retainer, if you have one | Shows how you are wearing your teeth down | A missed grinding problem |
| A note of what actually bothers you | Sensitivity, a rough edge, a spot that catches floss | The exam finds what it finds, not what you feel |
What a first visit at a new office should look like
A full exam, current images if the old ones are not usable, an oral cancer screening, and a conversation where somebody walks you through what they found. Then a plan that separates what is urgent from what can wait.
That last distinction is the one to listen for. Almost every mouth has a mix of both. An office that presents an entire treatment plan as equally urgent, and wants a decision that day, is running a sales process rather than a diagnosis.
The longer version is in seven things to check before choosing a dentist, which covers licensing, reading reviews properly, and the ownership question. Worth reading before you decide where to land.
A second opinion is not an insult. If a new office hands you a five figure plan at the first visit, taking it somewhere else before you say yes is the most reasonable thing you can do.
Why the new office may find things the old one did not
Sometimes this is a red flag. Often it is not, and the difference is worth understanding.
Legitimate reasons: a year has passed and things changed. The new office took better images, or took them from a different angle. Your previous dentist was watching something and never mentioned it. Dentists also have genuinely different thresholds for when early decay becomes a filling, and reasonable people disagree about that line.
Less legitimate: everything is urgent, the plan shows up before the conversation does, and there is a discount if you commit today. Urgency and discounts are sales tools, not clinical findings.
The way to tell them apart is to ask to see it. On the screen, with an intraoral camera or the x-ray pulled up. A dentist who is confident in a finding is glad to point at it.
Timing it around insurance
Most dental plans run on a calendar year with an annual maximum, often around fifteen hundred dollars, and unused benefits do not roll over. If you moved mid year, you may have a partially used maximum sitting there.
Two practical implications. If it is late in the year and you need work done, getting the exam in before December gives you a shot at using this year and next year both. And if you changed jobs when you moved, check whether the new plan has a waiting period for major work before you schedule a crown.
Verify the network with the office directly rather than trusting the insurer directory, which is frequently out of date. We break that down for Delta Dental and for United Healthcare specifically.
Do not let the gap get long
The most common version of this story is not somebody who switched offices badly. It is somebody who moved, meant to find a dentist, and then three years went by.
Twice a year is not an arbitrary number. It is roughly the interval at which the things that go wrong slowly, decay and gum disease, are still small and cheap to handle. Miss enough of them and you are not catching up on cleanings, you are treating a problem.
If it has already been years, that is fine, and it is more common than you think. Just say so when you book so the office schedules enough time.
Common questions
How do I transfer my dental records to a new dentist?
Call or email the old office and ask them to send your records and most recent x-rays to the new practice. Give them the new office name and email. You are entitled to copies of your own records and this is a routine request.
Do I have to tell my old dentist why I am leaving?
No. You do not need to give a reason, get approval, or have the conversation at all.
Will I need new x-rays at a new office?
Not necessarily. If your previous images are recent and usable, most offices will work from them. Bring the date of your last set so the new dentist can decide rather than default to retaking.
The new dentist found cavities my old one never mentioned. Should I be suspicious?
Not automatically. Time passes, images differ, and dentists have different thresholds for treating early decay. Ask to see it on the screen. A real finding is easy to show you, and a second opinion is always reasonable before a large plan.
When is the best time of year to switch dentists?
Any time, but if you have insurance and it is late in the year, getting an exam in before the annual maximum resets can be worth real money.
I have not been to a dentist in years. What should I expect?
A longer first visit, a full set of images, and a plan sequenced over several appointments rather than all at once. Say how long it has been when you book so they schedule the time.
New to Frisco? Start with an exam
Have your old records sent over, bring the list of what actually bothers you, and you will leave with a written estimate and a straight answer about what is urgent and what is not.
You may also be interested in these
- How to choose the best dentist in Frisco, TX
- Dentist on FM 423 in Frisco
- What Delta Dental actually covers in Frisco
About Tribute Family Dentistry
200+ five-star Google reviews • Family owned and independent • D Magazine Best Dentist 2026 • Living Magazine Readers' Choice 2026 • Se habla espanol
Tribute is a family owned, independent practice on FM 423 in Frisco. I own it with my wife, Dr. Julia Kang, DMD, MS. We both trained at Boston University and we are both members of the Omicron Kappa Upsilon national honor society. I am a Diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics. Day to day, most patients and their kids see Dr. Christina Pham, DMD, our general and family dentist, and oral surgery is handled by Dr. David Roberts, DDS, who has been doing it for more than 35 years. D Magazine named me a Best Dentist for 2026, and Living Magazine readers voted us Best Family Dentist in Frisco and Plano the same year.
We handle the whole family in one place: cleanings and preventive care, fillings, crowns, bridges, implants, root canals, extractions and wisdom teeth, whitening, night guards, and emergency visits. We are open Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, we speak Spanish, we work with most major insurance plans, and we run an in house savings plan for families without dental benefits.
If you need braces or clear aligners, that is the other side of what we do. Elate Orthodontics, our sister practice, treats kids, teens, and adults out of three offices in Frisco and The Colony.
Tribute Family Dentistry
5605 FM 423, Suite 600-B, Frisco, TX 75036
Book an appointment: (469) 598-1021
About the author: Dr. Kevin Baharvand, DMD, MS is a Diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics and a national speaker on clear aligner treatment. His clinical work was selected for the cover of the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics. He and his wife, Dr. Julia Kang, own Tribute Family Dentistry and Elate Orthodontics in Frisco, Texas.
