I have about 5 dentists in my immediate family (grandfather, dad, dad's wife, aunt and uncle). My dad is the head of the Perio department in the Hadassah Dental School in Jerusalem. Naturally, I had my teeth checked twice a year like clockwork all my life. I have some gum issues, but never needed a filling. 6 month after moving to the bay area, I went to a local dentist for general checkup. He used the "laser thingy"…
Since you have so many dentists in your family, can you (or anyone else here) comment on the cost of dental care? Every time I go, I am absolutely floored by the prices. I haven't been for several years now as I've had no pain requiring immediate attention. My last experience with dentists was getting a tooth that had cracked in half examined. At that point I had some pain, but I use sensodyne toothpaste so it seems…
Dentists don't like to quote prices because they want you to choose them based on their skills and reputation. Letting you shop around would turn this into commodity market. They do know (at least in countries without strange insurance habits) how much each procedure should cost and how much each of their friends asks for. This is not exactly collusion, but can contribute to price similarity. The same way that you can't find a decent DBA in the bay area for less than 100k. People usually know how much their skills are worth.
Hope this helped.