The right fee is the fee that people are willing to pay for and the service they expect as a result. Dentists can charge whatever they feel adequate for their services they feel they provide. Dental benefit plans and 3rd party payors feel they can tell you what you can charge to level the playing field... however, this is certainly not true. Not all clinical presentations/patients are the same and it maybe occurs that the patient has mitigating factors which necessitate this fee.
Do I think 7k is a significant amount of money for a 3-unit FPD, you bet. Do I think it's too high? Well, that depends. If you believe your 3-unit FPD is 7k worthy and have patients willing to pay for it, it probably is worthy of that fee. If you feel your dentistry is worth 1k for the same procedure and your patients are willing to pay that fee, then that is the fee you charge.
It's free market capitalistic thinking, not regulation by a 3rd party telling you what you can and cannot do or charge.
And yes, if I felt my treatment and services were worthy of charging 7k for a 3-unit FPD, then yes, I do sleep well at night because I know I could take the time to deliver a high quality product without cutting corners and using the best materials to deliver that result. In fact, I have been in high quality practices like this and that of PPO/network/DHMO/medicaid providers and I lost more sleep at night from the latter because the fees were so low that I could not justify doing the best dentistry possible.
Corporate dentistry highly pressures you to become a "past the lips, everything fits" dentist whether you think so or not. I never became this type of dentist and only lasted 8 months in corporate dentistry. And yes, I was a high producer, and yes, I did make a lot of money in this type of practice. I am very happy, however, that I am not in this type of practice anymore and am willing to make less money as a result. My trade off is that I do sleep better at night now than I did before.
