All doctors in Switzerland charge for their medical services according to a standard medical tariff: the Tarmed tariff. The Tarmed tariff applies to all outpatient medical treatments.
Tarmed is a uniform tariff for outpatient services throughout Switzerland. It is used for the billing of insurance services, including health insurance, accident insurance, disability insurance and military insurance.
For which services does the Tarmed medical tariff apply?
The Tarmed tariff applies throughout Switzerland to all outpatient services provided in a doctor’s practice or in a hospital. It includes over 4,000 individual items – from dressing a wound or taking blood to taking x-rays.
How is the price of a medical service calculated?
In Tarmed, every medical service is assigned a specific number of tariff points. The number of tariff points indicates how time-consuming/expensive a service is: the more time-consuming/expensive a service, the more tariff points it has. There is also the tariff point value. This determines the price of a tariff point. The tariff point value differs from canton to canton.
To calculate how much a service costs, the tariff points are multiplied by the tariff point value.
Does Tarmed also apply to dentists?
No, but dentists in Switzerland also use a uniform tariff: the dental tariff. It includes over 500 individual services.
Every service is assigned a certain number of tariff points. Here, too, there are tariff point values which determine the price. The tariff point value is fixed for treatments that are billed via health or accident insurance.
For all other treatments, dentists define the tariff point values themselves. So it’s worth comparing the offers of different dentists.