ENH: date_format or date_unit in to_dict
- [x ] I have searched the [[pandas] tag](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/pandas) on StackOverflow for similar questions.

- [x] I have asked my usage related question on [StackOverflow](https://stackoverflow.com).

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#### Question about pandas

Is there a way to use `to_json` but get the results as a dictionary instead of a string?

I have an ETL pipeline and Pandas gets me 99% of the way there, which is awesome, but I am encountering a snap.  

The `to_json` method returns the data in the format I need, but the values are strings.  Since I need to add additional information to pass on to our internal REST API, I need the ability to further manipulate the JSON.  For small amounts of data, this is fine, I can use the dumps/loads methods, but for large datasets, the conversion between string <-> dict is having lots of overhead.  Is there a way on `to_json` to get the response back as a dictionary instead of a string?

I've looked at the following:

- `to_records`
- `to_dict`

and a few others, but they do not have the additional options that `to_json` has.  

```python
import json
json_data = data.to_json(orient='records',
                                        date_format='epoch')

dict_json = json.loads(json_data)
dict_json[0]['other keys'] = {'some large' : 'amount of 3rd party information'}
....
```

