[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":69},["ShallowReactive",2],{"magazine:index":3},[4,12,19,25,32,38,44,51,57,64],{"path":5,"title":6,"section":7,"format":8,"standfirst":9,"published":10,"readingMinutes":11},"/magazine/the-new-smile-playbook","The new smile playbook","treatments","essay","Nobody hides veneers anymore. The one thing still left out of the story is what was irreversibly done to the natural teeth.","2026-08-30",12,{"path":13,"title":14,"section":15,"format":8,"standfirst":16,"published":17,"readingMinutes":18},"/magazine/excellent-teeth-expensive-smiles","Excellent teeth, expensive smiles","essays","Switzerland has some of the healthiest teeth in Europe. It also has one of the clearest income gradients in how they look. That is not a gap in the system. It is the system.","2026-08-27",10,{"path":20,"title":21,"section":15,"format":8,"standfirst":22,"published":23,"readingMinutes":24},"/magazine/the-mouth-you-were-given","The mouth you were given","A young person's teeth in Switzerland are set by two things: what the family could afford, and what it believed about teeth. The first is well documented. The second is where the decision actually gets made, and the state has arranged never to look at it.","2026-08-25",14,{"path":26,"title":27,"section":28,"format":29,"standfirst":30,"published":31,"readingMinutes":24},"/magazine/family-portfolio","Should teeth be in the financial plan?","household-economics","procedure","A Swiss family of four will spend somewhere around CHF 130’000 on dental care over forty years. Basic insurance covers almost none of it. Almost none of it is planned. We built the model to find out which decisions actually move the number, and which ones only feel like they do.","2026-08-22",{"path":33,"title":34,"section":28,"format":8,"standfirst":35,"published":36,"readingMinutes":37},"/magazine/most-expensive-body-part","The most expensive body part in Switzerland","A life in Swiss teeth, from the first one at six months to the last one at ninety-nine.","2026-08-20",9,{"path":39,"title":40,"section":41,"format":29,"standfirst":42,"published":43,"readingMinutes":24},"/magazine/verify-a-dentist","How to check a dentist abroad, and what nobody can check","due-diligence","Every one of the six countries we work in has a register, a licence and an inspector. What differs is how much of it you are allowed to see. Here is the full picture, country by country, with the gaps marked.","2026-08-18",{"path":45,"title":46,"section":47,"format":48,"standfirst":49,"published":50,"readingMinutes":11},"/magazine/whats-in-the-box","What's in the box","quality-control","explainer","A dental implant is a manufactured object with a serial number, a factory and a paper trail. Follow that trail across the seven countries a Swiss patient is choosing between, and the differences turn up somewhere other than where most people look for them.","2026-08-13",{"path":52,"title":53,"section":47,"format":48,"standfirst":54,"published":55,"readingMinutes":56},"/magazine/quality-control","Europe regulates the implant and the dentist. Nobody regulates the decision.","What actually gets checked in Switzerland, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany and Greece, who does the checking, and whether the check happens before your appointment or only after something has gone wrong.","2026-08-11",8,{"path":58,"title":59,"section":60,"format":61,"standfirst":62,"published":63,"readingMinutes":37},"/magazine/dentist-density","How many dentists a country has, and what that does not explain","markets","finding","Switzerland has roughly the same number of dentists per head as Italy. Hungary has fewer than either, and is the cheapest country on this list. Counting dentists tells you how hard clinics have to compete for a patient. It does not tell you what a crown costs.","2026-08-06",{"path":65,"title":66,"section":60,"format":48,"standfirst":67,"published":68,"readingMinutes":18},"/magazine/where-the-saving-comes-from","Where the saving comes from","A dental bill is mostly somebody's hour. Once you separate the hours from the things, the price gap stops being mysterious and starts being arithmetic.","2026-08-04",1788616075818]