Last updated: August 2026
The phrase does a lot of work in advertising, and not all of it is accurate. People arrive having read that they can have failing teeth removed in the morning and a new set fitted by the afternoon, and they want to know whether that is real.
Part of it is real. Part of it is a compression of a process that runs for months into a phrase that fits on a billboard.
Here is the honest version, including the parts that are less convenient to advertise.
In a full arch case, the sequence in one appointment usually runs like this. Any remaining teeth in the arch that cannot be kept are removed. Implants are placed into the jawbone at planned positions. If the implants are firm enough in the bone at the moment they go in, a fixed provisional bridge is attached to them before you leave.
So yes, you can go home with fixed teeth on the same day. That part of the claim holds up.
What the phrase leaves out is that the teeth you go home with are not the teeth you will end up with. They are a working provisional set. They are made to look reasonable, to let you speak, and to handle a soft diet while the important process happens underneath.
An implant works because bone grows into intimate contact with its surface and locks it in place. That process is called osseointegration, and it takes months. There is no technique that speeds up biology.
So the accurate way to describe same day treatment is this: the teeth arrive on day one, the foundation is finished months later, and the final prosthesis is made after that. The provisional set bridges the gap so you are not without teeth while you wait.
There is a second reason the final set waits. After extractions and surgery, the gum and the underlying ridge change shape as they heal. A final prosthesis made to fit the mouth on day one would be fitting a shape that is about to change. Waiting for the tissues to settle is what allows the final fit to be made to a stable target.
Attaching teeth to implants at the time of placement is called immediate loading, and it depends on one thing: primary stability. The implant has to be gripped firmly enough by the bone the instant it is placed to tolerate being splinted to its neighbours and carrying a bridge.
Whether that is achieved depends on the density of the bone at each site, and bone density is assessed properly at the moment of placement. Planning with a 3D scan beforehand gets you a long way towards predicting it, but the definitive answer is felt during the procedure.
Which means the honest version of the conversation before treatment is: this is the plan, and here is what happens if the bone on the day does not support it. If stability is not sufficient, the implants are left undisturbed to heal and a removable temporary is worn in the interim. That is a change of plan, not a failure, and you should know it is a possibility before you start rather than hear about it afterwards.
Anyone presenting immediate loading as a certainty regardless of what the bone turns out to be like is describing a marketing promise rather than a clinical plan. Our page on same day implants in Croydon sets out how the planning and the day itself are structured.
Once the implants have integrated, there are two quite different destinations, and the choice between them shapes the whole plan including how many implants are placed. Deciding this at the start matters, because you cannot easily convert from one to the other later.
The prosthesis is screwed onto the implants and stays in the mouth. You do not take it out, and nor does anyone else except your dentist for maintenance.
The prosthesis clips onto attachments fixed to the implants. You unclip it yourself to clean it and generally leave it out overnight.
Neither is better in the abstract. The right answer depends on how much bone you have, your dexterity, what you want to eat, how you feel about removing something at night, and your budget. Our implant retained dentures page covers the clip on option in detail, and if you are weighing this against a conventional denture, our comparison of implants and dentures is a useful starting point.
Full arch treatment is not decided by how many teeth are failing. It is decided by what is underneath them.
This is a long appointment, not a lunch break. Two practical things follow from that.
Arrange a lift. Have somebody drive you home. Public transport after a long surgical appointment is a poor plan generally, and it is a worse one from parts of the catchment than people expect. Croydon station is on the Lilydale line, and Heathmont and Bayswater sit on the Belgrave line, which means those trips need a change at Ringwood in each direction. That is a lot of platform time when you would rather be on a couch. Coming in from Ringwood East, Mooroolbark or Lilydale is a shorter run on the one line, but the same advice applies: bring a driver.
Do the shopping first. Soft food for the period your dentist specifies is far easier to stick to when it is already in the fridge. Sort it out at Eastland or Eastfield Shopping Centre in the days before, not on the way home while your mouth is numb and your judgement about what counts as soft is at its least reliable.
A third thing, for the week after: gentle movement is fine, hard exercise is not. A walk around H.E. Parker Reserve sits in the first category. A heavy gym session or a run does not, because it raises blood pressure at a site that is trying to form a clot and settle down. Your dentist will tell you when to resume normal activity.
Three things sit behind a case like this at our practice on Wicklow Avenue.
The cone beam CT is on site. Full arch planning needs the jaw in three dimensions: bone height and width at each planned implant position, where the nerve canal runs in the lower jaw, and how low the sinus floor sits in the upper. Having the scanner in the building means the imaging happens at your assessment, with no external referral and no separate trip, and the person planning the case is the person reading the scan.
The impressions are digital. An intraoral scanner captures the arch with a small handheld wand rather than a tray of impression material. For a full arch case that is a meaningful difference, because it is not one impression: it is records at planning, records for the provisional, and records again for the final prosthesis.
The scan data drives the surgery. The CT and the digital scan can be merged so implant positions are planned on screen and a surgical guide made to direct placement along that plan. Our page on guided implant surgery explains how that works and where it helps most, which is usually where bone is limited and the margin for error is small.
One clarification while we are on technology, because the words get mixed up. Same day crowns and same day implants are unrelated. Same day crowns are made here with a digital scan and in house milling, and that really is a single visit for a single tooth. Full arch implant treatment is a months long process that happens to start with one long day. If you are after the first thing, our same day crowns page is the right one.
Whichever destination you choose, this is not a set and forget solution. Implants do not decay, but the tissues around them can become inflamed and can lose bone, which is why maintenance appointments are part of the treatment rather than an optional extra afterwards.
Alongside our ten dentists we have an oral health therapist and a hygienist, and full arch maintenance is exactly the kind of appointment that benefits from unhurried time with somebody focused on cleaning technique around a prosthesis. We run Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 6:00pm and Saturday from 8:30am to 5:00pm, which makes the review schedule easier to keep to without repeatedly taking time off work.
We do not publish a figure for full arch treatment, because a single figure would be misleading. The variables are large: how many implants, whether extractions are included, whether grafting is needed, whether the quote covers both the provisional and the final prosthesis, and what the final prosthesis is made of. Two quotes can differ by a lot and both be reasonable, because they describe different treatments.
What you should get is the sequence in writing with the cost of each stage, before anything begins. Our explanation of why implant quotes vary covers the staged structure that sits behind the numbers.
On health funds, implant work generally falls under major dental with waiting periods, and because treatment is staged the benefit is often claimed across more than one item number and sometimes across two calendar years. Our private health insurance page lists the funds we are preferred providers with, and your fund is the authority on your own limits.
On DVA, prior approval is required and the funded circumstances are specific: two implants to attach a partial upper denture, or three implants to attach a full lower denture. DVA also sets who may deliver each phase. Surgical placement is restricted to an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, oral surgeon or periodontist, and for implant retained dentures the restorative phase additionally requires a prosthodontist. Those are policy rules about who may perform a phase under DVA, not limits on capability. Our DVA dentist in Croydon page sets out what that means for planning a case.
Start with an assessment and a scan, because everything above depends on what the bone shows. You will get a plain answer on whether immediate loading is realistic for you, which of the two destinations suits your situation, and what the sequence and timeline look like.
Call (03) 9725 8040 or book online. We are at 59 Wicklow Avenue, Croydon, with Saturday appointments available. For the wider picture of implant treatment, see our dental implants page, and for the full arch options in particular, our All on 4 page.
DVA funding rules described here are drawn from the Department of Veterans Affairs and were last checked in August 2026. Health fund benefits vary by policy and are set by your fund. This article is general information, not personal dental advice; your dentist will assess your individual clinical need.