Four ADA item numbers, two very different health fund categories, and one question almost nobody answers locally.
A wisdom tooth quote in Australia is built from one of four ADA item numbers, and which one applies decides both the fee and which part of your health fund pays it. Item 311 is a simple extraction. Items 322, 323 and 324 are surgical removals, in ascending order of difficulty: 323 is the one requiring bone removal, and 324 adds dividing the tooth into sections before any of it comes out. The gap between the cheapest and the dearest of those is not a pricing decision. It is the difference between lifting an erupted tooth out with forceps and surgically sectioning an impacted one lying under the gum against a nerve canal.
At Whitehorse Dental, 129A Canterbury Road, Blackburn, Dr Kerry Chen handles the complex extractions, wisdom teeth included, which is why most of our patients have this done in the chair here rather than through a hospital admission. That single fact changes the total bill more than any per-item fee comparison will, and we come back to why below.
| ADA item | What it covers |
|---|---|
| 311 | Removal of a tooth, simple. The tooth has erupted through the gum and comes out without cutting. |
| 322 | Surgical removal. The gum is lifted to reach the tooth. |
| 323 | Surgical removal requiring bone removal. Bone covering the tooth has to be taken away first. |
| 324 | Surgical removal requiring bone removal and division of the tooth. The tooth is sectioned and removed in pieces. |
Nothing about that sequence is discretionary. An OPG, the wide X-ray we take here that shows all four wisdom teeth in one image, is what settles which item applies: root shape, angulation, how much bone sits over the crown, and how close the lower roots run to the inferior alveolar nerve canal. A quote issued without that image is a guess, and it is the reason people end up comparing two numbers that were never describing the same operation. Our colleague has written that comparison up in detail in simple versus surgical wisdom tooth extraction.
There is no published average fee for wisdom teeth in Melbourne's east, and any site quoting one is inventing it. There are, however, two genuinely published national reference points. The Department of Veterans' Affairs sets administered fees it pays participating dentists, and the Australian Dental Association's 2022 fee survey, reported by CHOICE, gives national averages for a handful of common items.
| Item | DVA administered fee, from 1 July 2026 | ADA 2022 survey, national average |
|---|---|---|
| 311 simple | $162.30 | $205 |
| 322 surgical | $263.35 | not surveyed |
| 323 with bone removal | $300.80 | not surveyed |
| 324 bone removal and division | $404.60 | not surveyed |
Sources: Department of Veterans' Affairs fee schedule of dental services, effective 1 July 2026; Australian Dental Association 2022 fee survey as reported by CHOICE. These are published national reference points shown so you have something real to compare against. They are not Whitehorse Dental's fees, and they are not a quote. Your fee is confirmed in a written treatment plan after Dr Kerry Chen has assessed your X-ray.
This is the question people actually type into Google before booking, and it has been answered badly for years, because the answer is not one word. Wisdom teeth removal is not inherently major or general dental. The item number decides it, and funds do not all decide it the same way.
The practical consequence catches people out. Someone who joined a fund four months ago may be fully covered for a 311 and have nothing at all payable on a 324, on the same policy, on the same day. And because surgical items sit in a different bucket, having spent your general limit on check-ups and fillings during the year does not necessarily mean there is nothing left for the extraction, or the reverse.
There is a separate distinction worth knowing. If a wisdom tooth is removed in a hospital, the dentist's or surgeon's fee may still be claimed on extras, but the theatre, facility and anaesthetist costs are claimed against hospital cover, which is a different insurance product entirely. People who hold extras only, which is very common, discover this at the worst possible moment.
So the four things to ask your fund, quoting the item numbers off your treatment plan:
Medicare does not fund routine adult dental treatment in Australia, and wisdom teeth removal at a dental practice is routine adult dental treatment. That is worth stating plainly, because the assumption that Medicare covers something surgical is a common one.
There are only two dental doorways into the Medicare system. One is the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, for eligible children and teenagers aged 0 to 17, which does list extractions among the services it covers. The other is Category 7 of the Medicare Benefits Schedule, Cleft and Craniofacial Services, which is restricted to patients registered under that program. Neither one reaches an adult having a wisdom tooth out. If your teenager is CDBS eligible, though, that is a different conversation, and we bulk bill under CDBS here.
The largest single variable in what wisdom teeth cost an Australian patient is not the dentist's fee. It is whether the tooth is removed in a dental chair or in an operating theatre. A hospital admission adds a facility fee, a theatre fee and an anaesthetist's fee, three separate invoices that have nothing to do with the extraction itself, and it routes the biggest ones through hospital cover rather than extras.
Dr Kerry Chen, who trained at the University of Melbourne, does all the complex extractions at this practice, including surgical wisdom teeth. Because that capability sits in-house on Canterbury Road, the surgical pathway most patients need is the chair, not a theatre list. For patients who would rather not be fully alert through it, happy gas and oral sedation are both available here, which covers most of the reason people ask about a general anaesthetic in the first place.
Some cases genuinely belong in a hospital, and we will tell you when yours is one of them and arrange the referral rather than attempt it. The point is that the referral becomes a clinical decision about your particular tooth, instead of a default because nobody at the practice does surgical extractions.
You get a written treatment plan with the ADA item numbers on it before anything is booked. That is deliberate: the item numbers are what let you ring your fund and get a real answer rather than a range. We have HICAPS on site, so on the day the rebate is processed through the terminal and you pay only the gap. If you hold a DVA card we bill the Department of Veterans' Affairs directly, though some surgical items need prior approval from DVA, so mention the card when you book rather than on the day. Full detail on funds, HICAPS and DVA is on our paying for your dental care page, including what our HCF More for Teeth preferred provider status changes.
We see patients from Blackburn, Box Hill, Nunawading, Doncaster, Surrey Hills, Mont Albert, Forest Hill, Glen Waverley, Mount Waverley, Burwood and Balwyn. There is on-site parking and we open Saturday mornings, which suits an extraction you would rather recover from over a weekend. Consultations are available in Mandarin, Cantonese, Teochew, Shanghainese and English. Call (03) 8838 8820 and ask for an assessment with an OPG, which is the only honest starting point for a number.
It depends entirely on which item number your dentist uses, which is why the question has no single answer. A simple extraction (ADA item 311) is treated as general dental by almost every fund, and general dental usually carries a short waiting period of around two months. Surgical removal (items 322, 323 and 324) is where funds diverge: many classify it as major dental, which typically carries a twelve-month waiting period and often draws on a separate, smaller sub-limit than your general dental benefit. The practical consequence is that two people with the same policy can get very different answers for the same tooth. Before you book, ask your fund which category each item number on your quote falls under, and whether you have served the waiting period for it.
No, not for routine adult extraction. Medicare does not fund general dental treatment in Australia. There are only two dental pathways on the Medicare system: the Child Dental Benefits Schedule for eligible children aged 0 to 17, and Category 7 of the Medicare Benefits Schedule, which covers Cleft and Craniofacial Services for patients registered under that program. Neither applies to an adult having a wisdom tooth removed. If you are an eligible teenager under 18, however, extractions are on the CDBS list of covered services, and we bulk bill under CDBS at Blackburn.
Most of our patients do not. Dr Kerry Chen handles the complex extractions at Whitehorse Dental, including surgical wisdom teeth, so the great majority of cases are done in the chair here on Canterbury Road with local anaesthetic, and with happy gas or oral sedation if you would rather not be fully alert for it. That matters financially as well as practically: a hospital admission adds a theatre fee, an anaesthetist's fee and a facility fee on top of the dentist's fee, and those are claimed against hospital cover, which is a different insurance product from the extras cover that pays your dental benefit. Some cases genuinely do belong in a hospital, and when yours is one of them we will say so and arrange the referral.
Because they are different operations. An upper wisdom tooth that has fully erupted and has a simple root shape can often be lifted out under item 311 in a few minutes. A lower one lying horizontally under the gum, with roots curving around the nerve canal, needs the gum lifted, bone removed and the tooth cut into sections before any of it comes out, which is item 324. Same patient, same appointment, roughly double the fee, because the second one is a genuinely longer and more technical procedure. This is also why a quote given without looking at an X-ray is not really a quote.
Yes, and we would be guessing without one. We take an OPG here at the practice, which is a single wide image showing all four wisdom teeth, their root shapes, how they sit against the second molars and how close the lower roots run to the inferior alveolar nerve canal. That image is what determines whether a tooth is a 311 or a 324, so it is what determines the fee. It also determines whether the extraction is safe to do in the chair at all.
Yes. We have HICAPS on site, so your health fund rebate is processed through the terminal at the end of the appointment and you pay only the gap. If you hold a DVA card we can bill the Department of Veterans' Affairs directly. Bear in mind that some surgical items require prior approval from DVA before treatment, so tell us you hold a card when you book rather than on the day.
We cannot tell you, because it depends on your policy, your remaining annual limit and your fund's benefit for each item number, none of which we can see. What we can do is give you a written treatment plan with the exact ADA item numbers on it before anything goes ahead, so you can ring your fund and ask what they will pay for those specific items. Patients who do that almost never get a surprise afterwards. If you are with HCF, we are a preferred provider under the More for Teeth program, which changes what you pay on some services.
No, and there are reasons to go either way. Doing all four in one appointment means one recovery period, one course of time off and often a lower total fee than four separate visits. Doing them in stages, usually one side at a time, means you can still chew comfortably on the other side while you heal, which some people much prefer. If only one tooth is causing trouble and the others are sitting harmlessly, we will generally recommend the simplest option, which is often removing the one that is a problem and monitoring the rest.
Yes. Consultations at Whitehorse Dental are available in Mandarin, Cantonese, Teochew, Shanghainese and English. Costs and health fund rules are exactly the sort of thing that is easier to get right in your first language, so if you would rather go through the item numbers and what your fund covers in Mandarin or Cantonese, tell reception when you book and we will arrange it.