Dental care is not covered in the same way as other medical treatments and you pay a much higher proportion of your dental check-ups and treatments yourself.
What is covered?
Anyone, registered as resident in Sweden, is entitled to free dental care up to and including the 31 of December of the year you turn 23. Adults on the other hand, pay a large part of their dental care costs themselves, starting on the 1 January of the year they turn 23.
For asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants: you have the right to receive dental care free of charge until your 18th birthday.
You are, as an adult, entitled to a dental care grant of 300 or 600 SEK a year. You can save the grant for two years and use it on one occasion, but you can’t save more than two grants at the time.
Note: you must see a dentist – tandläkare or dental hygienist – tandhygienist who is affiliated to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency – Försäkringskassan in order to receive the support.
Can I get financial help for dental care?
There is a high cost protection for dental care, similar to the one for regular health care. Yet it doesn’t cover as much as the high cost protection for other medical treatments. The government will step in and help if your dental care costs exceed 3000 SEK in one year.
However, not all treatments are included, and it isn’t always possible to include the entire cost in the high cost protection. Therefore, you should always ask your dentist or dental hygienist what the treatment is expected to cost and how much of it will be covered by the dental high cost protection.
Where do I find a dentist?
You find your nearest dentist here – just fill in your location in the search field and you will get a list with all the dentists affiliated with the public dental service – Folktandvården. The page is only in Swedish but will give you useful contact information.
There is no similar service for the private dentists, so we suggest you use Google or Bing and search for tandläkare + the name of your location, to find your closets private dentist. For example “tandläkare + Göteborg”.
Private vs. Public
Private or public? Near your workplace or close to home? It is up to you, to pick which dentist you want to visit. Yet, there are some aspects that you should consider when picking out a dentist:
- The price can differ (quite a bit sometimes) so call around to get an idea of how much different dentists charge for a certain treatment.
- Some (not all) dentists offers you the option to split the payment.
- Waiting times can be long, especially during summer and vacation times. So, make sure to check out the different waiting times, and consider this when choosing a dentist.
- The dental high cost protection only applies for treatment by dentist affiliated with Försäkringskassan.
For more information about benefits and regulations, visit:
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