Pricing health services: verification of a monopoly pricing model for dentistry

A model of monopoly with constant marginal costs is used to derive a price function for dental services. The implications of the model are tested using data on individual practitioners from a national survey. The implications of the model are met by the data, providing strong evidence of the appropriateness of the monopoly model to analyses of the market for dental services. The empirical evidence also provides substantial information on the determinants of dental fees.