It has to be determined by specific market conditions. I don't think anyone practicing dentistry in Israel earns anything even close to the sums you mention. As

It has to be determined by specific market conditions. I don't think anyone practicing dentistry in Israel earns anything even close to the sums you mention. As you said, there could be an artificial shortage in dentists. When my father lived in the US, he worked as a researcher, but didn't bother getting a dentist license because the process was too complicated and time consuming. 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.