What can be known before being examined?

‘I have teeth missing’ covers situations that have almost nothing in common: a molar lost long ago, or a whole arch that no longer holds. The Instituto AreLuna describes two families of treatment. A single implant replaces a lost tooth with a titanium implant carrying a zirconia crown, with a stated course of two to three appointments and about three months of osseointegration. Restoring a full arch relies on a fixed prosthesis carried by four or six implants. Which one applies to a given mouth depends on a prior individual assessment and diagnosis.

The starting points are published: 600 € for a single implant, 4 300 € per arch for a full restoration. They give an order of magnitude; they do not allow a budget to be built, because the amount for a case depends on a prior individual assessment and diagnosis.

The materials are published too: Neodent by Straumann implants, a brand of the Swiss Straumann group, placed by guided surgery — that is, with the case planned on a computer before the bone is touched.

Part of the answer is not in Porto but in your own insurance record. The CNS — the Caisse nationale de santé, Luxembourg’s national health insurance fund — does not contribute to the implant; it contributes to the fixed prosthesis that sits on it, at 80% of the official tariffs, and at 100%, without the 20% personal contribution, if the annual preventive dental check-up was done in each of the two previous calendar years. The prosthetic procedure in a given case depends on a prior individual assessment and diagnosis.

That last condition is the only thing on this whole page that can be checked without anyone’s help: your statements from the fund show it, and the fund confirms it. Knowing which side you are on changes how a quote is read before it even exists.

What cannot be known in advance is the amount the fund will reimburse: it follows the prosthetic procedure chosen and the Luxembourg scale, and the procedure chosen comes out of the examination.

How much bone is available where each tooth is missing. Whether a root has to be removed first, an inflammation treated, a neighbouring tooth looked at again. Whether an arch meets the conditions for a fixed provisional prosthesis fitted straight away, or not. And, as a result, the plan, the number of trips and the final amount.

These answers are not being kept secret: they do not exist yet. They come from a diagnostic consultation at which a 3D X-ray, or CBCT scan, is taken — the image that shows the bone in three dimensions. Nobody can say what needs doing in a mouth without having examined the person and seen that image.

‘I would like a healthy mouth’ is a legitimate request, and it is the hardest to turn into a plan without an examination. It may lead to an implant, to treatment around it, or to something else entirely; the word ‘implant’ is not necessarily the answer, and the examination decides.

Three things fit into an evening and commit you to nothing. Rereading your CNS statements for the preventive check-up in the two previous calendar years. Checking the establishment and the practitioner in the Portuguese public registers. Noting the periods when a stay in Porto would be possible.

With that in hand, the call to +351 220 430 090 does what it should: it books the diagnostic consultation at Rua de Júlio Dinis, 194, 4050-327 Porto, an establishment registered under number 161637, licence 21593.