In the case of adults 24 years and older, the governmental support for dental care, called the dental care allowance, features prominently in Sweden’s dental care system. One of such is the Allmänt tandvårdsbidrag for general dental care assistance (ATB), which is provided annually to promote preventive measures.
1177.se states that a sum of 300 SEK is allotted yearly only to people aged between 24 and 29 or over 65 years, whereas, people aged 30 to 64 years qualify for 600 SEK within a year. This gets subsidized as part of ongoing dental cleaning or procedure thereby easing the burden of having to incur out of pocket expenditure on dental care.
High-cost protection plan
Further to the ATB, there is also a high-cost protection plan provided in Sweden that enables people to pay only a certain sum on costly teeth treatment rather than paying the whole costs. This protection is activated after dental expenditures have surpassed SEK 3,000 in total. After this, the patient is responsible for the cost of treatments, paying 50% of the costs in the range of 3000-15000 SEK and 15% on excess – outside 15000 SEK. Most patients requiring different varieties of service including the root canal therapy as well as dental transplantation stand to gain greatly as they face lower net expenditures (1177.se).
No cosmetic procedures covered
Nonetheless, it is necessary to consider that the dental care allowances provided by the state do not include the cosmetic types of procedures. Any procedures that can be categorized as cosmetic such as tooth whitening or aesthetic adjustments are not allowed as such a program is oriented more to the provision of fundamental and preventive care than optional and cosmetic solutions.
The state also wants the patients to actively seek out and understand what their dental work is going to cost them. Because prices can differ from one clinic to another, patients are encouraged to ask for and get cost estimates before they start treatment. Such clarity, on the other hand, ensures that individuals are not caught unaware about dental fees and enables them to choose what to or not to do (1177.se).
