BACKGROUND: To guarantee the  quality of health attention, the health  care system in Colombia, established  since 1993, created new conditions for  competition between the IPSs (clinics).  This competition is based on the quality  of the services provided. However, we  have observed that many of these  institutions have failed in these  objectives and today many patients and  health care professionals are not  satisfied. PURPOSE: To determine the  quality of the oral healthcare services,  rendered by three private IPSs in  Bogota, during 2002. METHODS: Three  IPS were taken into account which were  named as: IPS 1, IPS 2 and IPS 3. The  questionnaire applied to every IPS was  the Structure, Process and Results test.  The factors analyzed were: the  weighing, the qualification of the  components or indicatives of each field,  the weighed qualification column and  the appropriateness degree. RESULTS:  The infrastructure in oral health services,  of three private IPSs in Bogota, fulfills  the requirements of the quality  standards. The human resources of the three IPSs are enough to render an appropriate service. The IPS 3 does not have the quantity and optimal conditions of the necessary physical resources for rendering the oral health services. In the same way, neither a flow chart, a  defined function handbook, nor the appropriate managing protocols is presented by this IPS, thus making difficult the fulfillment of the latter. The three IPSs reported the number of finished treatments along 2002 is approximately 70% and the number of repeated treatments by the three IPSs is below 0.02%.