From Switzerland, how do I book an appointment for implants, and what comes next?

The request almost always arrives in the same form: an appointment for implants, if possible next week, preferably in the afternoon. The first half is settled by telephone, on +351 220 430 090, which is the only means of contact given on this website.

The second half depends on the timetable. The practice sees patients Monday to Friday, from 09:30 to 19:00, and is closed at weekends: every slot, morning or afternoon, therefore falls on a weekday. For someone working in Lausanne or Geneva, that means a day of leave to take, not a weekend to fill. Whether next week still has a place available is a matter for the practice's diary, answered at the time of the call; this page cannot do it in its place.

The call can be made in French. The Instituto AreLuna states that consultations are held in Portuguese, with a team that speaks English, French and Spanish fluently. For someone living in Lausanne or Neuchâtel, that is a convenience; for someone who grew up in Portugal and prefers to describe their mouth in the language of their childhood, it is often more.

The first appointment is not the placing of an implant. In the sequence described by the Instituto AreLuna, there is first the diagnostic consultation with a 3D X-ray — the examination called CBCT, which shows the bone of the jaws in volume — then a written plan, and only then the treatment, by guided surgery planned from that image.

This order is no formality. Nobody can say what needs doing in a mouth without having examined the person and seen their three-dimensional image. A request put in one sentence, however precise — ‘I am missing two molars at the bottom’ — remains a description, and what will be proposed depends on a prior individual assessment and diagnosis.

This consultation is paid for, and its amount is then deducted from the treatment. No figure is published for it, and this page writes none. It lasts 30 to 60 minutes depending on the complexity of the case; when the plan provides for a surgery, it generally takes place the next day. That is why a first stay for implants is at least three days: one for the assessment, one for the surgery, at least one for recovery before getting back on a plane. Durations and sequence depend on a prior individual assessment and diagnosis.

What to bring comes down to one rule: everything that exists on one's medical or dental condition — reports, letters from a Swiss doctor or dentist, earlier examinations. The X-rays needed for the plan are taken at the practice.

In French-speaking Switzerland, the LAMal, the compulsory basic health insurance, does not cover dental care in practice. For implants, there is therefore no authorisation to request before booking, no plan to submit, no third party to accept or refuse the quote once the consultation is over. Between the person and the practice, no body stands in the way.

That is a freedom, and it is also a void. Where nothing is checked upstream, checking the practice's registers ceases to be one precaution among others: it becomes the only control that exists, and if the person does not do it, nobody will.

It comes down to very little, to be noted before the call or asked for during it. The establishment's registration number with the Entidade Reguladora da Saúde, the Portuguese health regulator, is 161637; its operating licence carries number 21593; the address to which that licence applies is Rua de Júlio Dinis, 194, 4050-327 Porto. The name of whoever will operate is checked in the register of the Ordem dos Médicos Dentistas — the Portuguese professional body for dentists.

The diagnostic consultation leads to a written plan and quote. In Switzerland, that quote has no reader other than the person who receives it: no insurer sets it against a tariff, no adviser countersigns it. It is therefore read line by line, and the decision belongs to the person holding it.

Everything that follows flows from this document: the date of the surgery, the number of trips from Geneva or Zurich, the interval before the final prosthesis. None of it is fixed at the time of the call; all of it is fixed after a prior individual examination and diagnosis, and the pages on travel start from there.