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An American website that helps patients find cheap dentists says the wide discrepancies in pricing for tooth repair in Alberta suggests there is a need for a similar service north of the border.

The founder and chief executive of okcopay.com — a social impact startup that allows consumers in 13 U.S. cities to compare prices for common procedures — said he was surprised that a Herald investigation found differences of over 200 per cent in charges for the same work among the province’s practitioners.

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“That sort of market screams out for increased price transparency,” Toure McCluskey said in an interview from his Seattle office.

“I had assumed wrongly that dental care was covered under your public health-care system in Canada, but now I’m very intrigued about the prospects for our business up there.”

An internal survey by the Alberta’s Dental Association and College shows prices in the province’s $1.5-billion dental industry have surged faster than both inflation and charges elsewhere in the country since 1997, when the regulator stopped publishing a suggested fee guide that is used as a benchmark for fees in every other province.