I did the maths, and with flight, time off work etc etc the costs would have worked out more or less the same having it done here as to having it done elsewhere in the world, had to have 4 visits to the dentist, had no complications , and they are 8 minutes from my house, if anything had gone titsup having the dentist 8 minutes away would have been priceless.

Now that's new to me. In the course of 40+ years I did lots of repairs on dental work from abroad. Never got sued. Did I miss something?

You are overthinking it. This is a typical Swiss line. Good dentist do exists outside Switzerland. Actually people do live outside Switzerland, there are countries, cities, you get the point.

Find either a clinic with a good quality control (preferably) or a good dentist you trust.

One aspect related to the cost of dental service is that some dentists cheat and either put items on the invoice that were not done by them or put those position items at much higher costs than the SSO tariff. While over-charging is a fairly typical practice we have seen with some repair services, as dental practitioners ourselves, we expected people in our profession to have a higher level of professionalism; after all, how can you build a lasting relationship with a patient when there is no honesty?

There are unfortunately bad apples out there. We see most of the over-charge cases from the corporate practices (like Zahnarztzentrum), where the dentists are paid as % of billings and none of the dentists stay for long at the practice, so the emphasis is on billing as much as possible now and not on patient relationship. But our data may also be skewed as these are typically the dental practices our patients go to in cases of emergency when our practice is closed. In one recent case, the patient went to Zahnarztzentrum Zug due to tooth ache. The dentist there supposedly did a root canal treatment on all 3 roots and pushed the patient really hard for follow up appointments and other treatments. The patient continued to have tooth ache and came to see us the moment we were back. We took x-rays of the tooth and saw that the root canal treatment was done only on 1 root (thus the continue ache) and not even finished, yet the invoice reflected a full treatment on all canals. The patient paid close to 600 CHF for treatments that were not done.

So review your invoice carefully. If the dental practice states they adhere to the SSO tariff, then they should provide to you an itemized invoice listing the treatments (position items) that were done.

I’ve been to the the Zahnarztzentrum for years and never had a problem with treatment, professionalism or billing. In fact they seem to be more cost effective and less pushy than the private practice I used to go to.

Just had a clean at Zahnarztzentrum Basel. Not my usual practice/dentist.
Very thorough clean etc, @chf200
I can't complain about the quality. Seems the hygienists may be self employed.

My wife went across border to Germany last week to dentist. A lot cheaper. There have been articles that dentists have been creating work that is not necessary

Hey I'm trying to decide on a dentist and have a few questions:

1. Is there a list off SSO certified dentists? (I can't find one)

I did find 3 close to my house:
* 1 has the logo of SSO and mentiones taxpunkwert so he likely is registered (?), but I'd like to confirm in a independant source.
* 1 does not have the SSO logo on their site or anything about TPW, yet mentions "SSO-zertifizierte Weiterbildungspraxis" under qualifications. Does that mean their praxis is SSO and charges SSO tarriffs?
* The 3rd praxis doesn't mention SSO anywhere.

2. The praxis that does mention SSO and TPW says this about it:
Versicherungs- und Sozialtarif: 1.00 TP
Privattarif: 1.02 TP

I am not insured for dental. Does this mean I'll get charged 2% higher than normal SSO rates? Or does this mean 1.02CHF per taxpunkt? Is that generally considered a "good" rate? (central Switzerland)

3. In the country I'm from I'm used to go twice a year for a checkup generally lasting 2 minutes tops, with a precautionary x-ray every 2-3 years. Is that normal/possible here as well? I see the shortest appointment you can make here with one specific dentis is 30 minutes which is unnecessarily long (and a waste of money).

Of course I'll call the office soon but just trying to prepare a bit beforehand. Thanks!

Does your wife work? My usual dentist is in DE, but for a clean, it wasn't worth the extra time it would take, especially on a work day.
Probably 50% of the cost in DE.

They said they had very few patients Q1 and Q2, and even now people are staying away (similar to other health related matters).

My experience is, a new denstist will want to give you a proper examination, as they don't know your history, and usually they will insist on a clean procedure first.They may also ask for recent x-rays or ask to take x-rays. So the first visit to a new dentist is always going to cost you.

After personal experience, I would not go to a 'one man band' with one hygeinst again. They don't usually have enough throughput to have the lastest machinery and stay on the ball with the less common procedures. So they are fine for a clean/checkup/filling, but IMHO, not for crowns, root canals, implants etc.
A large practice where they have a specialst in surgery, specialists in root canals etc makes more sense.

But anyway, that's my musings.

1.02 TP = looks good to me.
If you believe there is nothing wrong with your teeth, just go for the hygeinist and visit your own dentist next time you go home.

I paid 120 francs for a first time dental in Payerne, xrays included since it had been awhile since I’d seen a dentist. They were impressed with my teeth so I have to be honest and say that I’m lucky and haven’t had much go wrong in my mouth. But 120 francs including xrays is cheaper than what I paid in the US ... I was quite happy with the service too.

Just as an aside, I once had to have an emergency visit as a tourist to a dentist in the US and with x-ray it was an unbelievably reasonable $60.


Just a couple of years ago I had the problem treated in a big flashy dentist on Ave. de Bale in St. Louis near Basel. Cost me something like 1,300CHF for treatment during which they broke the tooth and refused me any refund. I had to have the tooth (molar) removed at the Zahnarztzentrum Basel SBB for 450CHF. The service there for that procedure was good.

Thanks for the answer. I permanently moved here and the dentist back where I used to live generally has a 3 month wait time or so (plus don't know if or when I'll visit my previous country)

I did bring our complete file with recent x-rays from the previous dentist, our teeth are fine and we're young. Just used to having a check-up twice a year to be able to respond quickly if a cavity does start to form. Never needed extensive cleaning before so I doubt I need it here. I'll ask the dentist office about it, perhaps they don't do fast cheap check-ups in Switzerland?

When I arrived here in Switzerland I heard that dentists are EXTREMELY expensive.

At this time I need to do some minor dentistry and I want to know if you've found the dentists to be "on par" with other places for Dental procedures or if they are Above or Below normal costs.

Simple stuff right now, like a minor cavity.

A filling is likely to cost around 100 francs.

More like double it. Think at least 250!

I just added up my February dental issues.

Hygiene + check + x-ray was about 380
Fillings were about 250 each

Turns out I also had periodontitis which ended up costing more than 1600 CHF to treat - two periodontal cleanings + culture + antibiotics. And that was relatively cheap because we caught it early and it was not too bad.


Now the tooth that sent me to the dentist originally is acting up again, so if it doesn't fix itself (talk about dreaming) I guess I can tell you the price for a root canal as well in a few weeks...


These are all prices for a dentist in central Zurich.

__________________
Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool

Allow me ... I paid CHF 670 for the first part of a root canal treatment. Two weeks later I was in agony. I then paid CHF 462 for the tooth to be extracted and around CHF 90 for each visit I had to investigate the continued pain (temporary nerve damage). I haven't even thought about the cost of a replacement tooth and am just grateful that masks are in fashion. This was in Graubunden.