Mark from Palmerston North — 4 Osstem dental implants

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.

Mark is a farmer in his fifties, based outside Palmerston North. Decades of a hard diet, night grinding, and putting off the dentist had ground his lower arch down — several teeth were worn to stubs and two had cracked at the gumline. Chewing on his right side had become a daily gamble. His own words on the post-trip survey: “I wasn’t after a film-star smile. I wanted to bite into an apple without planning my whole day around it.”

A Palmerston North private clinic laid out a plan to clear the failed teeth and restore the arch with implants, quoting around NZD 26,000 (the local range sits at NZD 24,000 to NZD 28,000). For a working farmer riding seasonal cash-flow swings, that number meant not now, maybe never. A neighbour who had travelled to us for a bridge mentioned what he had paid, so Mark emailed us his home X-rays and photos. We returned a written, itemised NZD quote within 24 hours: 4 Osstem implants at NZD 1,667 per implant = NZD 6,668.

Bone, brand tier, and the honest two-trip reality

Mark’s first question was whether the cheap route was the wrong route. We were straight with him. Osstem is a Korean system we place in high volume, with a strong evidence base and reliable integration in the dense lower jawbone he had plenty of. It sits at the entry of our brand list, not because it is low quality, but because the per-implant price is lower than Nobel Biocare or Straumann. For his case — four fixtures in good bone, no front-of-mouth aesthetic demand — it was a sound match, not a compromise.

The trade-off was time, not quality. Implants need bone to heal into, so this was always going to be two trips: placement and any minor socket work first, a healing gap of several months back home, then the final restorations. We told him that plainly before he booked a single flight. Dr. Tran Thanh Phong, our Head of Implantology, reviewed the plan and confirmed four well-positioned implants would carry the rebuild.

The two trips

Trip 1 — extractions and implant placement (6 days)

At home — healing window (several months)

Mark healed through the New Zealand autumn while the implants integrated. We ran remote check-ins and asked for photos at set checkpoints. His local dentist reviewed the healing during a routine visit.

Trip 2 — final restorations (5 days)

What it cost end-to-end

Against the Palmerston North quote of around NZD 26,000, Mark’s gross saving on clinical fees was roughly NZD 19,300. After two return flights, accommodation, food, and insurance, his net saving came to about NZD 14,200 — and that is comparing brand-name implants placed by a high-volume surgeon, not a cut-corner alternative.

The thing he didn’t expect

From his survey: “I’d braced myself for a production line. What I got was the opposite — a long first consult where the surgeon showed me every implant position on the screen before anyone picked up a drill. The placement day ran longer than I thought, but I’ve had worse afternoons fencing in the rain. The bit that caught me out was afterwards: a few weeks on, I ate a whole steak and never once clocked which side I was chewing. You stop thinking about your teeth. Nobody warns you about that part.”

Aftercare back in Palmerston North

Mark took home an implant passport listing the Osstem brand, fixture diameters and lengths, and torque values, plus a written aftercare summary. His Palmerston North dentist added the implants to his file at a routine check eight weeks after the final fit and reviewed the occlusion. His 12-month review with the same dentist came back clean, with a 24-month review booked. Routine six-monthly hygiene with his local dentist is the ongoing plan, and we remain available for any warranty matter via [email protected].

Mark’s three pieces of advice

1. “Send your X-rays before you book anything. I almost didn’t bother — that one email told me whether the trip was even worth taking, for free, before I’d spent a cent.”
2. “Time the two trips around your own calendar, not the dentist’s. I’m a farmer, so I slotted both visits between the busy seasons. The healing gap isn’t dead time — put it where it suits your work.”
3. “Don’t aim for the cheapest fix. I could’ve got dentures for less and regretted it. Implants that bite like real teeth were worth crossing an ocean for.”

See also

• Dental implants pillar — the protocol, implant brands, and NZD pricing.
• Implant aftercare — what Mark was told for home maintenance.
• Palmerston North to Vietnam dental implants — 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.