Sustainable HIV Care in the Dominican Republic
Abt’s approach to providing sustainable solutions to our clients’ most critical challenges can be seen in news out of the Dominican Republic. With the support of the Abt-led, USAID-funded SHOPS Plus, three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are reducing their reliance on foreign aid funding by contracting with SENASA, the Dominican Republic’s national health insurance agency, to provide primary care services.
The Center for Comprehensive Research and Training (COIN), Clínica de Familia, and the Center for Human Advancement and Solidarity (CEPROSH) all signed contracts to join SENASA’s provider network. These NGOs provide HIV, sexual and reproductive health, and other primary care services to approximately 12,000 people per year, and provide antiretroviral treatment to more than 4,000 of the 34,000 people on HIV treatment in the Dominican Republic. With the new revenue from the subsidized scheme, the NGOs will be able to sustain their services and develop the systems needed to contract with other insurance schemes even as international donor funding diminishes. These are the first NGOs to contract with SENASA, so this is a milestone not only for sustainable health care, but for the roadmap it may provide for more NGOs to provide sustainable services by contracting with the agency in the future.
SHOPS Plus helped guide this collaboration by encouraging SENASA to pursue contracts with NGOs and then helping the NGOs meet SENASA’s pre-requisites and navigate the contracting process. Abt identified the obstacles to contracting and the requirements for accrediting health facilities, and quantified the benefits of doing so.
Through SHOPS Plus, Abt will continue to work with the three NGOs to execute their contracts with SENASA. Our technical assistance will include developing standard procedures for submitting claims, facilitating a knowledge exchange between NGOs that have previous experience billing other insurance schemes and those with no experience, and organizing contract review meetings with SENASA to address any issues that arise.
