[Basic tenets for quality circles in North Rhine Medical Service of Public Health Insurance].

The Medical Advisory Service of the Health Insurance in the area of the Northern Rhine (MDK Nordrhein) has set up an internal concept for quality management since 1998. This concept includes the installation and performance of quality circles. Staff members were internally qualified as "presenters".

[Quality assurance and teamwork in social medicine expert assessment exemplified by the expert assessment aid "corrective breast surgery" of the North Rhine Health Insurance Medical Service].

To standardise sociomedical expertising procedures in surgery of the breast a project team of medical advisors of the Medical Advisory and Expertising Service North Rhine worked out a manual. A form was created for sociomedical pre-advice occasions. Detail parameters for examination (time needed and advisor selection) were fixed in consent.