New Eyes’ E-Voucher Program and Referral Business

Over the years New Eyes has built collaborative relationships across the country with social service providers and healthcare advocates. They are case workers, school nurses, and other front-line professionals who help their clients access needed services and work with New Eyes to secure prescription eyeglasses.

For decades, paper vouchers served as the backbone of service delivery with thousands submitted via U.S. mail by referral sources each year. Vouchers contained needed client information, such as financial eligibility, prescription information and mailing addresses, and had to be manually processed. This resulted in a backlog of requests as volunteers had to manage hundreds of vouchers delivered daily to New Eyes’ headquarters.

Going Digital

In 2016 New Eyes transitioned to a fully electronic voucher system. This cloud-based integrated platform includes an e-voucher application system, an on-line ordering system supported by an optical lab manufacturing partner, and a management system for redemption statistics, shipment tracking and client returns. The platform has dramatically streamlined processing, making it faster and easier for referring organizations to secure new eyeglasses for their financially struggling clients.

Meeting Demand

The launch of the E-Voucher Program combined with additional outreach to referral sources and expanded financial eligibility to the working poor (250% of U.S. Poverty Guidelines) resulted in an 80 percent increase in requests. In 2019 18,000 eye glasses were distributed to individuals and families in 47 states.

Enhancing Purchasing Power

The e-voucher platform has enabled New Eyes, with the help of its optical lab partner, to seek the most cost-effective ways to procure lenses and frames as well as provide scalable manufacturing capacity of new eyeglasses. New Eyes has nearly tripled its purchasing power by significantly reducing its cost for a pair of high-quality prescription glasses from $60 to $22 per pair, including a $5 shipping charge. (The average retail price of glasses in the U.S. is approximately $195.)

95, Jennings, CA

Despite the tremendous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which impeded access for individuals seeking basic vision testing and remote agents facilitating e-voucher fulfillment, New Eyes filled more than 9,000 requests for free prescription glasses in 2020. In response to direct requests from individuals and their families, New Eyes developed and launched an online application for those unable to work through a referring organization.