FWIW, I've had two root canals.
The first one was done by my dentist and I felt a bit "pressured" into doing it(i.e. "You have to do this and I have to do it today." In retrospect, I should have both had a second opinion and if I'd needed it(don't really doubt) would have had an endodontist do it. My dentist split it into two sessions a month apart-one where apparently she did the root clean-out and another where she did the filling, something that now seems ridiculous to me. In any case, I woke up in excruciating pain two days later, called here, she took an X-ray and said "Oops, I missed a root." A few hours later, she'd at least taken care of that and done everything up to the point of fitting a crown. It was overall an unpleasant experience.
The second was with an endodontist. I'd been sent on referral by my dentist(a different one from the above) to a peridontist for a bump on my gums. The peridontist looked at it, x-rayed it, called in the endodontist across the hall to look at it, and they both advised a root canal and said it shouldn't wait as the "bump" was the result of an abcess.
The endodontist worked me in that day over lunch, and did the entire thing in about an hour and a half on one of my second molars. He was quick, but also extremely thorough. I'd guess he took about a half dozen X-rays through the course of doing it(my first didn't take a single one during). I mentioned something to him about my folly with the first and he said first of all that he's seen serious complications from splitting into two sessions, said that all my teeth had the same root arrangement as the one where I'd had the issue and even though it wasn't a "textbook" arrangement it was still common and easily visible on the X-ray. He of course didn't openly criticize the dentist who had done my first one, but had a look of "What kind of hack was that?"(BTW, that was a hack dentist who later had her license suspended over one specific incident). The endodontist was relatively painless, fast, and there again well worth seeing. I think he charged $900 only.
BTW, I've never had dental insurance, and I usually get both a good deal as a cash customer(I get the impression that a lot don't like dealing with the insurance) and usually a 5-10% discount for paying in full before I leave the office. There again, I suspect the rate of no-pays on cash customers also makes them incentivize a paid in full bill.
