The role of contractual arrangements in improving health sector ...

Egypt
The Monitoring and Evaluation Unit at the Family Health Fund employs skilled and
experienced staff to achieve the unit objectives, which include:
Ensuring the accuracy of data regarding the performance status of the contracted facilities.
Identifying the obstacles to performance in the contracted facilities, working out their resolution
and training the staff in these facilities to prevent recurrence of the obstacles in the future.
Ensuring the application of the required performance standards and studying the capabilities of
the contracted facilities to perform health services according to the pre-set and agreedupon
quality standards.
Coordinating with the Policies and Planning Unit of the Family Health Fund to update the
performance standards as necessary to improve the quality of health services delivered at
the contracted facilities.
Internal periodical monitoring of the Fund’s operation to support and assist the administration in
ensuring effectiveness and compliance to the pre-set plans (quarterly).
Who is the purchaser and who is the provider?
The Family Heath Fund represents the purchasing agent, on behalf of the population
that lives in the health district. The providers include private clinics and polyclinics,
university clinics and religiously-affiliated nongovernmental organizations.
There are two approaches to signing the contract, which is a one-year renewable
contract.
For providers located in districts and working under the District Provider Organization (DPO)
approach, the Family Health Fund signs the contract with the DPO, where the latter has a
service level agreement with the provider.
For providers located in districts but not working under the DPO approach, the Family Health
Fund signs the contract directly with the provider.
What is the basis of disbursement from the Fund account?
The internal rules and regulations of the Family Health Fund control the disbursements
from the Fund account.
The Fund signs contracts with governmental and nongovernmental health institutions to buy
health care services. However, these institutions must fulfil the conditions and standards
of accreditation determined by the Ministry of Health and Population.
The Fund pays a monthly incentive to the bodies it contracts with, the health service providers,
depending on the performance rates required.
The Fund will be committed to cover its managerial and operating expenses.
The Fund manager can invest any excess funds through the Fund’s financial department.
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