Is dental care covered?

What the law says

Basic insurance covers dental work in only three situations, set out in article 31 of the LAMal. First: a serious and unavoidable disease of the chewing system. Second: a serious general illness, or its after-effects, that makes dental treatment necessary — leukaemia, for example. Third: dental treatment that is indispensable for treating a serious illness.

Accidents are handled separately. If you are covered by your employer’s accident insurance, that insurer pays. Otherwise your health insurer steps in under its accident cover.

What you pay yourself

Everything else — and that is most of what a dentist bills: check-ups, cleanings, fillings, root canals, crowns, implants, dentures. Switzerland is one of the few countries in Europe where routine dentistry sits outside the basic basket. It is a long-standing political choice, regularly debated, never overturned.

• ✓An annual check-up with cleaning: CHF 150 to 300.
• ✓Treating a cavity: CHF 200 to 500 depending on extent.
• ✓A crown: CHF 1,200 to 2,000.
• ✓An implant: CHF 3,000 to 5,000, all in.

What supplementary cover changes

Supplementary dental cover generally reimburses 50 to 75 per cent of costs, up to an annual ceiling ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand francs. Two things to know before signing.

First, the insurer will ask you to complete a health questionnaire, and may refuse or attach an exclusion for anything already present: supplementary cover is not something you take out once the problem is there — you take it out before. Second, many contracts raise their ceiling in stages over the first few years, so the first-year limit is rarely the one in the brochure.