I refer to dentists as doctors. Perhaps I should have used a different example-there’s plenty of them.
And, I should add, I’m sure there are exceptions.
That's nice but this article does not use the generic term "doctor" that can be used to refer to anybody from a neurosurgeon to a Ph.D. in "Women's Studies" at your local university.
This article refers specifically to "Primary Care Physicians" which means something very specific and who are under the price setting situation of Medicare and the insurance companies which you claimed was not the case because of something your local dentists were doing.
In the case of physicians, they can charge whatever they please, $567,967.93 for an office visit is they want to, but the bottom line is that the insurance companies and Medicare will then pay the price that they decided to pay everybody, not a penny more, and that's that.
Even if physicians could collect whatever they wanted, at the slightest suspicion of price fixing with other physicians, the Feds would be on them for "safe harbor" regulations violations like pit-bulls on a pork-chop.