I don't know about fees in your area, but I can say you are comparing:

Apical surgery with 50% success rate
Implant surgery with 95% success rate

Approximations.

I realize that what I'm about to say is not helpful except that in the
"misery loves company"  line I definitely feel your pain..!

 Have been going through the exact same procedures.( last  molar on
left bottom) which was a fine, filled strong tooth to which the anchor
for a Root-Canal on next tooth was to be placed..

When the last of the first 3 Endodentists worked on the
still-uncompleted RC.
she said"oops!".. and told me to come back in a few weeks for the
Crown,
Later, at home, I acidently swalllowed 1/2 the filling and a piece of
the good tooth that had dislodged.(from the "oops".I gather)
When I tried to get another appt w/ her, I was told I must seek another
Dentist...as she had just had a baby..
3 consultations,(with recommendations to Extract" the1/2-finished RC
tooth many x-rays and a year later..I've finally found an "Emergency"
Dentist for a filling for the formerly good, strong molar as even air
hitting the exposed nerve has been excrutiating..It's taken that long to
find a dentist to phone back, make an evening appt.for ext Wed..After
his vacation..!
I live in Long Island too..

I wish I'd never gone for the unneccessary R.C. as that tooth wasn't
bothering me.. I simply obeyed the referral of my old  DentisT.. who,,
chose to file down the tooth part of the last molar "to make it even
with the filling"....

   I know, in other states, Dentists do Oral surgery in hospitals, but
haven't found one here...and bcs of impending knee surgery, and
infection.. would fee safer in a hospital..

 I'm on the South Shore.. If any of you Dentists.. will do a simple
filling, w/o trying to sell me on a lifetime of intricate procedures on
my winning smile.. please e-mail me...Spent my youth in the
Orthodontists chair, prefer to spend the Golden years facing my 6
Grandsons rather than Dental X-ray machines...My autograph on a check is
worth more than you can imagine...

I'd like to keep my smile.I was blessed wth strong teeth and bones
Why is that such a no-no for the DEntal community?

Doing an apico usually removes a some of the buccal bone plate necessary for
good implant success.  So, if the apico fails, you may have difficulties
with putting an implant in that space.  You should ask your dentist of
his/her opinion given your clinical/radiographic circumstances prior to
deciding on apico.

John

you could try having it re-done with an endodontist who uses a
microscope and a technique called "warm vertical condensation of gutta
percha" where the root canal filling is pushed into the tooth while it
is in a soft, melted state, so that it flows into the root canal, even
if it is a torturous root canal.  most endodontists use microscopes
and use this technique anyway.

You have to be careful with lower second molars because the ends of
the roots of these teeth are often right next to a large jaw nerve in
the area called the mental nerve.  This nerve can occassionally be
injured during root canal treatment on these teeth, which may cause
pain.  the root canal filling material may sometimes be pushed out the
end of the root into the mental nerve, also causing pain.   The tooth
might also be cracked.  Sometimes this happens if the endodontist uses
a technique called "cold lateral condensation" to fill the tooth with
the root canal material.  in the "cold lateral condensation"
technique, the endodontists pushes a metal wedge into the root canal
in order to condense and push the root canal filling material.  This
wedging motion can on rare occasions crack the tooth because of the
pressure of the wedging motion on the thin tooth root.  The "warm
vertical condensation" technique for filling a root canal has less
risk of this happening.

Doing an apicoectomy on these teeth is also somewhat risky because in
an apicoectomy a hole is made in the bone at the tip of the root of
the tooth in question.  on a lower premoler an apicoectomy could
result in damage to the mental nerve, because the drill hole into the
bone might go into the nerve.  An implant might be a better option,
but the implant must be placed above the mental nerve so as not to
damage it.  there has to be enough bone above the mental nerve to give
support for the implant.

Also, sometimes there may be enough glitches in the root canal filling
that doing an apicoectomy would not solve the problem, in which case
first redo the root canal then do the apicoectomy.

whatever is done must take into account possible risk of damaging
mental nerve.

13 weeks is a reasonable amount of time to expect
the tooth to settle down.

Suspect that there is either a missed canal or a root fracture.

If it were me, would probably let the endo have another go
at treating the RCT with special focus on looking for a vertical
root fracture. Would probably use the same one.

If there is a vertical root fracture, sorry there's no fixing that.
If the endo thinks an apico will work, it might be worth a try,
but retreatment may be the best first option.

You can always get an implant later, with modern grafting
technics there should be no problem placing an implant
wether you get an apico or not.