[Quality assurance: clarification of a provocative and trendy expression]

The GRG from 1988 commits all suppliers of medical or therapeutic services in Germany to take steps to assure quality. The legislator left it in the care of the involved parties to find an agreement how to do it. This vagueness together with the emphasis put simultaneously on quality and economy turned this issue into a threat for many therapists. This tendency is supported in addition by the intensified competition between the therapeutic schools. The major goal of this review is to give some information that provide a functional discussion and hinder a misuse. The article informs about the issue of quality assurance, which is not as new as some people may consider it; the political context is pointed out, the main concepts are introduced, approaches and experiences from other countries or other fields of medicine are reported, and the conflicts between the interest groups are sketched out. Finally, some comments on central aspects are given which eventually make easier a transference into the field of psychotherapy and hopefully encourage specific approaches of quality assurance in this field.