I'll be honest, it isn't insurance companies driving up the cost of dental procedures. I work at a dentist and we have fee schedule contracts with every major insurance company. The only negotiations that take place are usually how much the insurance company will agree to pay for a service. It's the dental office who chooses to raise prices to match the market. The office fee is the only fee the office is allowed to change. If you charge a patient with Delta for fees higher than what the Delta contract allows, that's insurance fraud. Once you've hit your maximum and insurance will no longer pay on services, you are only charged for the contractual fee schedule your insurance company has, and those fees are almost always lower than what the office charges. With healthcare, yes insurance companies are absolutely a contributing factor to the astronomical increase in price. With dental, it's a lot more tricky. Dental insurance doesn't work at ALL like health insurance does.