Voucher agency requirements

Voucher schemes require transport and mm mi mirations networks developed enough to ensure the reliable distribution of vouchers and the timely exchange of information between the voucher agency and other organizations involved. A detailed discussion appears in chapter 5. 

Write the recipient s name on the voucher and ask the provider to confirm it by asking to see a photo identification card. To ensure that the provider checks the recipient s identification, the provider can be required to fill in the number of the identification card, which the voucher agency can check against a register kept at the time the voucher is distributed. This process may be costly, and many poor people may not have personal identification. 

Voucher schemes require reliable communications—between the voucher agency and voucher distributors and between the voucher agency and service providers. The voucher agency needs to be able to distribute the vouchers. Providers need to be able to return them, along with any information required, to the voucher agency. Patients sometimes need to be transported to specialist care providers. The logistics involved in organizing reliable transport and communications can be complex (box 5-7). To ensure that they work properly, they should be pilot tested. 

If providers are required to send samples to a central laboratory, systems to transport the samples need to be established, along with reliable ways to ensure that providers, patients, and usually the voucher agency receive the results. Producing double (or triple) copies of the results can help. 

Community health workers follow up on patients with high-grade lesions who fail to return to the clinic for their results. The workers visit the women and advise them that they need treatment. If this fails, a promoter from the voucher agency is sent. If necessary, the health promoter provides the woman with the money required for transport to the clinic. 

The voucher agency (on behalf of the subsidy provider) pays the expenses of women requiring specialist treatment in the capital if they cannot afford the bus ticket or overnight accommodation. 

As a general rule, the voucher agency should receive a copy of all forms. Service providers will probably wish to keep a copy of the form for their records. Sometimes diagnostic service providers will require copies of at least parts of the clinic record. Multiple copies of forms can be produced cheaply using NCR (no carbon required) paper that prints through to the sheet below with the pressure of a pen. 

---