Review for Doctors

U.S. doctors have for years fought to keep the Federal Government from ruling on what is necessary, proper care. In the most recent defense of their professional prerogative, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons had gone to court to block enforcement of a new Social Security amendment that will monitor the treatment given Medicare and Medicaid patients. The doctors argued that such a system violated their constitutional right to practice medicine and their patients' right to receive treatment.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed with that view. It let stand a lower-court decision upholding the Social Security legislation. The court's decision means that the Federal Government may now order the formation of Professional Standards Review Organizations (P.S.R.O.s) to review medical procedures in individual cases and decide if the treatments prescribed by physicians receiving federal payment conform to generally accepted standards. Though doctors will be unhappy about P.S.R.O.s, they will probably not pull out of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which provide a major share of some physicians' incomes.

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