Dentists double fees w/o cause -- using medical increases for cover?

About 12 years ago I had a root canal done at a downtown Chicago office for $500 --- about $750 in today's money. This spring I needed another one -- this time the going rate all over the country ran closer to $1400!

All I can guess is that dentists watched the average person's annual MEDICAL costs double -- due to new procedures and machines (e.g., MRIs) and figured they could double their fees also and no one would would notice or question the dental increases in the overall atmosphere of medical increases.

Or could it be that today's adults who had better dental care as kids plus fluoride in their water just don't need as much treatment -- tempting dentists and oral surgeons to up prices to make up for lower traffic (using the same overall medical price hikes for cover)?

So much for the perfect matrix of prices measuring utility in the unfettered free marke that the naive Chicago Boys economists would have us believe (example 1001).