[3 years of MDK (Health Insurance Medical Services)--current status and future trends]

The medical service and medical supply organizations operating in Germany within the framework of compulsory sickness insurance are based on the principles of common self-administration that is monitored via contracts. The partners to these contracts develop reciprocally adequate ideas on the medical and economic structures of the medical supply system and expand their supply and negotiation strategies by discussing the structures of paid benefits and medical supply. This means there is an increasing need for a medical interpretation of the findings and of the data on the course of a disease and its treatment. The need for explaining from a medical point of view why certain contract strategies have been adopted and must be followed, is also on the increase, as is the demand for quality assurance methods that can claim to be adequate for this medical supply system. Medical Advisory Service has become more distinctive wherever compulsory sickness insurance has been making every effort to shoulder its health policy responsibilities and to make quality assurance a declared aim.