The PSRO Program: Start of a New Chapter?

PSRO's have borne out the prediction that they would be difficult to implement because of their technical, professional and political complexities. Four years and five months after the signing of PL 92–603, not one PSRO is fully operational. The reasons for this delay are straightforward: administrative inaction followed by inconsistency and rigidity in directing the program; issuance, in November, 1974, of Utilization Review regulations whose legal status and meaning remain obscure to this day; underfunding by Congress; infighting for control among the heads of the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the Bureau of Quality Assurance (BQA); disputes between state agencies . . .