Donna from Tauranga — single Neodent implant for a lost premolar

Real patient story, shared with permission. This patient has consented to Picasso Dental Clinic publishing their experience to help other New Zealand patients. Treatment, material, NZD price, and timeline are accurate to the case archive. Reviewed by Dr. Tran Thanh Phong, Head of Implantology.

Donna is a bookkeeper in Tauranga in her late fifties — the kind of person who reconciles other people’s numbers for a living and notices immediately when one doesn’t sit right. The number that had bothered her for two years was the gap where an upper premolar used to be. The tooth had cracked, failed, and finally come out, and she’d quietly learned to chew on the other side. It wasn’t painful, which was exactly why she let it slide.

What pushed her to act was the neighbouring tooth starting to lean. A Tauranga private clinic had quoted her around NZD 6,500 for a single implant with a crown, and as someone who respects a fair price, that figure made her close the laptop. She found us, sent through a panoramic X-ray and a few photos, and asked what it would actually cost. We returned a written, itemised NZD quote within 24 hours: 1 Neodent implant at NZD 2,000 per tooth = NZD 2,000 clinical cost.

The brand and bone conversation

Her first questions were the right ones. She wanted to know what implant brand we would use and why it cost a third of the local quote. We proposed Neodent — a Swiss-owned, well-established fixture brand, not an unbranded part — and explained that the difference is overheads and labour costs in Vietnam, not the implant itself. The crown carries a 5-year Picasso clinical warranty.

From the OPG the bone looked adequate for a straightforward placement, but we were clear that this could only be confirmed with a CBCT 3D scan on arrival. No promises were made before we had imaged the site in person. Dr. Tran Thanh Phong reviewed the case and confirmed the staged plan: place the fixture, allow it to integrate, then return for the crown.

The two trips

Trip 1 — implant placement (5 days)

Healing window

Donna returned to Tauranga and got on with her quarter-ends. The implant needed several months to fuse with the bone before the crown could go on. We ran a remote check-in at six weeks and again at three months, and her local dentist confirmed the site was healing well.

Trip 2 — final crown (4 days)

What it cost end-to-end

Against the Tauranga quote of NZD 6,500 to 7,000 for the same single implant, the clinical saving was roughly NZD 4,500. Once two return flights and accommodation were added, the all-in total landed close to the top of the local quote — but the local figure was clinical only, with no travel and no holiday attached. Donna chose Picasso for the branded fixture at a third of the price, the itemised quote with no “from” pricing, and the chance to fold the second trip into a coastal break.

The thing she didn’t expect

From her post-trip survey: “I’d braced myself for the surgery to be the hard part. It wasn’t — it was over in under an hour and I was eating soup that night. What I hadn’t grasped was how much of the timeline is just waiting. The implant has to fuse before the crown goes on, and that happens at home, not in Vietnam. Once someone explained that, the two-trip plan made complete sense instead of feeling like a hassle.”

We now spell out the healing window clearly in every single-implant quote so the staged timeline is never a surprise.

What aftercare looked like back in Tauranga

Donna had a routine check at her Tauranga dentist a couple of months after the crown was fitted. We sent a written aftercare summary and the implant passport — the Neodent brand, lot, and batch number — so it could be added to her file. Her 12-month review back home came back clean, and the neighbouring tooth has stopped its slow lean now that the gap is filled.

Donna’s three pieces of advice

1. “Get the itemised quote in writing before anything else. A single ‘from’ number tells you nothing — ask what brand of implant, what warranty, and what’s actually included so you’re comparing like with like.”
2. “Let the healing happen at home. The long wait between the fixture and the crown is the part nobody warns you about. Use your trips only for the work that needs the chair, and you’ll waste neither time nor money sitting around.”
3. “Add the travel honestly before you celebrate the saving. Flights, hotel, meals, insurance — put them on top of the clinical price. In my case it still came out fair, and I got a holiday out of the second trip.”

See also

• Single tooth implant pillar — the protocol, brands, and NZD pricing.
• Implant aftercare — what Donna was told for home maintenance.
• Tauranga to Vietnam dental travel page — local benchmark and route logistics.

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About this page

Medically reviewed by

Dr. Tran Thanh Phong

Head of Implantology, Picasso Dental Clinic

DDS · 25+ years in practice · 15,000+ implants placed · 1,000+ All-on-4 cases

Clinical focus: Implantology · All-on-4 · Zygomatic implants

Dr. Tran Thanh Phong has practised since 2001 and leads implantology across the Picasso group. He was the first Vietnamese dentist to perform All-on-4 immediate loading (2010), placed over 15,000 implants across his career at roughly 600 per year, and has completed 400+ zygomatic implant cases since 2017. Loma Linda University-trained (2010). Clinical representative for Nobel Biocare in Vietnam since 2007.

Last clinically reviewed

28 May 2026

Published by

Picasso Dental Clinic

Review policy

Every medical procedure page on this site is reviewed by a named Picasso clinician before publication and re-checked when pricing, materials, or protocols change. Source documents are linked at the bottom of each page.