Most of us are fortunate to not have medical anomalies that require anything other than routing medical attention in which case prices are pretty cut and dry. My point was when a doctor recommends a path of treatment they usually have a comfort level with that treatment and it's effectiveness.
In your case the filling, the root canal and the serious work where three separate projects. In the development world, you would get the requirements for the filling and the root canal would feature creep in as the filling was being done. That was my point, was that doctors (for the most part) have pretty fixed problem sets like root canal where developers have different problem sets for each new project.
Interestingly, under the Medicare reimbursement system, that's pretty much exactly how they are paid (if the patient is a Medicare patient).
Ain't so. Doctors get paid for their time, Medicare just has the government pay for it instead of the patient.
Also, dentists in particular are poorly covered by medicare here. I remember as a student going to a dentist that was affiliated with my uni and having the receptionist laugh when I pulled out my medicare card...
In the US, Medicare is only for old people, and it's uncommon for them to attend university. Also, "uni" isn't a usual American colloquialism. So it appears that michael_dorfman is talking about US Medicare, and you're probably talking about Australian Medicare.
Speaking as someone who went to get a new filling in June, went through getting a root canal on another tooth, and finally will end up going under a GA to get some more serious work done in a month or two, I can assure you that doctors (well, dentists) do <i>not</i> charge on a fixed-symptom basis.
Even if you need to return to a doctor only to get a new copy of a script you have already had, most doctors will charge you the consult time.
Given that you appear to suggest there is no art to medicine, it sounds like you have no exposure to the medical world. Our profession isn't as unique as you make it out to be.