There's a fair bit of difference in quality between dentist but I've never really noticed much variation in their prices for stuff. It's like they've all agreed to slug everyone the same high price across the board, it's whether they bother to do what they are supposed to do properly is the real problem imo.
Yeah I think there is actually a schedule of prices (each state has a different schedule) that they use. So the rip-off merchants resort to doing unnecessary things.
At the time I needed a bit of work done, I joined this dental 'insurance' type of thing where for about $60 a year you got a different price schedule (much cheaper for some things). The caveat is that you have to select from a restricted group of 'member' dentists. Thing was, these dentists were all good (have seen three different ones in my time), and I figured the reason they signed up to the cheap scheme was because they were new to the country and simply trying to build up a client/patient base.