Rawiri from Hamilton — single Osstem dental implant for a missing lower molar

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.

Rawiri is a welder from Hamilton, 49, with a gap on the lower left where a molar had split on something he bit into at smoko and crumbled away over a couple of years. He had learned to chew on the right and put off doing anything about it — until he sat down to actually price a fix and the number stopped him cold.

An Hamilton private clinic had quoted him around NZD 6,500 for a single implant. As he put it in the post-trip survey, “I’d budgeted for a checkup and a clean. I was being quoted the kind of money that buys a second-hand ute.” We returned a written, itemised NZD quote within 24 hours: 1 Osstem implant at NZD 1,667 per tooth = NZD 1,667.

The brand and healing conversation

Rawiri’s first question was the one most implant patients ask — was the cheaper price a cheaper implant? We walked him through it. Osstem is a leading Korean implant system with a long clinical record and use in clinics worldwide; the crown carries a five-year Picasso warranty. The saving is in Vietnam’s lower clinic costs, not in the hardware.

His second concern was the bone. He sent a panoramic X-ray from his Hamilton GP referral, and Dr. Phong’s team flagged that the molar site looked workable but needed CBCT confirmation on arrival before anything was promised. We were clear that the final plan could only be locked in once we had in-person 3D imaging.

The two trips

Trip 1 — placement (4 days)

Three-to-four-month healing window

Rawiri flew home and got straight back on the tools. We sent a six-week remote check-in and a twelve-week one. His Hamilton dentist eyeballed the site at a routine visit and was happy with how it was settling.

Trip 2 — final crown (4 days)

What it cost end-to-end

Against the Hamilton quote of roughly NZD 6,500 for the implant alone, his entire trip — both flights, both stays, food, and insurance included — landed at about the same total. The clinical work itself, NZD 1,667, came in near what he’d originally set aside for a year of routine dental care. The second trip doubled as the first real holiday he and his wife had taken in years.

The thing he didn’t expect

From his survey: “I’d braced myself for the placement day to be brutal. It was duller than a long filling. What caught me out was how little of the whole trip was actually about teeth — I was in the chair maybe two hours total across the first visit. The rest of it I was eating my way around the Old Quarter and walking it off.”

What aftercare looked like back in Hamilton

Rawiri had a routine check at his Hamilton dentist about two months after the crown was fitted. We sent a written aftercare summary and the implant passport (Osstem brand, lot, and batch), which his dentist added to his file. He was told to treat the implant like any other molar — brush, floss, and a six-month check clean.

His twelve-month review back in Hamilton came back clean.

Rawiri’s three pieces of advice

1. “Don’t sit on a gap for years like I did. The teeth either side start to lean in, and you cost yourself for no reason. The work itself was the easy part.”
2. “Send your X-ray ahead. Mine made the first consult quick, and quick is exactly what you want when you’ve flown that far.”
3. “Take someone with you on the crown trip. Turning the second visit into a holiday with my wife was the best call in the whole thing — it stopped being about the tooth.”

See also

• Single-tooth implants — the protocol, brands, and NZD pricing.
• Implant aftercare — what Rawiri was told for home maintenance.
• Hamilton 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.