Competitive Bidding Process

Transcription

1 Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us for this webinar on competitive bidding a very important topic in the Rural Health Care program.

2 There are four steps to successful competitive bidding. The first step is filling out the Form 465 clearly, accurately, and in a timely manner. The second step is developing selection criteria to review bids to make sure that you re giving equal consideration to all service providers. Step three: waiting 29 days before submitting a Form 466 or 466-A indicating bid selection and noting the Allowable Contract Selection Date, or ACSD. Step four is submitting a contract to USAC for evergreen review with the Form 466 or 466-A. This is an optional step, but it will streamline the application process for future years.

3 For Form 465, on the PowerPoint slide you will see a screenshot of line 29, which is part of Block 4 of Form 465. Please note that although the name of the form is the Description of Services Requested & Certification Form, line 29 asks the health care provider to describe their telecommunications or Internet service needs. Be very careful of what you put for this line 29.

4 We recommend that you do not request a specific telecom service and/or bandwidth, but rather describe your needs allowing the service provider to propose services to meet those needs. Let the service provider offer you solutions. They are the experts. As an example here, something too specific for line 29 would be a health care provider saying that they need a T1 line. It s preferable that they put on line 29 that they need to be able to transmit data and/or medical images. Instructions for line 29 have more information about other examples of needs that you can include on line 29, including medical research, offsite storage of medical records and provider-to-provider consultation between health care professionals in a rural facility and professionals in another location. But the bottom line for line 29 is that being too specific locks you into receiving that service type only. If it s more general, you can be open to other types of services. Maybe the service provider would recommend a DS-3 line in the case of the transmission of data and medical images rather than the T1 line. In order to be fair and open, we prefer that you describe your needs rather than specific services.

5 Also on Form 465, on Block 5, unless you re absolutely positive you ll only use one, telecommunications or Internet services, we request that you choose both telecom and Internet services in Block 5. The reason we do that, again, is if you only select one and accept a bid for the other, this limits what you ll be able to accept from service providers in the bids.

6 The Form 465 will prompt service providers to submit bids. But before reviewing any bids, you should determine how you ll evaluate the bids to ensure the process is fair and open. Your evaluation plan will help you arrive at a selection of the most cost effective service provider. The FCC has defined cost effective for you as the method of least cost after consideration of the features, quality of transmission, reliability, and other factors relevant to choosing a method of providing the required services. This definition allows you to develop your own criteria, keeping in mind other factors that are relevant to your health care provider.

7 The criteria will vary from one health care provider to the next, but HCPs should select the criteria that s important to them and relevant to their needs. Some of the examples include, but are not limited to, technical support, previous experience with a service provider, cost for service, rapid response, expertise in the area of telemedicine, and service provider having a single point of contact. We encourage you to determine your own selection criteria and put it in writing. It s very important that you put it in writing. We encourage you to use a document. It doesn t have to be our own scoring matrix, but we ve developed a document for you that has tabs that will help you list the selection criteria that can be edited to include your own criteria. There s a second tab that defines the criteria and a third that assigns weight to indicate the criteria that s most important in allowing multiple reviewers to score each bid. Basically, the evaluation plan ensures that there is a paper trail in case you re audited to determine how you evaluated service providers and bids. We encourage you to share your selection criteria with the service providers that they may meet their needs and know what exactly you re looking for in terms of your service needs. Once you ve developed your criteria, you re ready to review bids and select your service provider.

8 After the Form 465 is posted on the Rural Health Care website, the required 28-day posting period begins. It is very important that the health care provider not enter into a contract or service agreement until what we call the Allowable Contract Selection Date, or ACSD. This is actually the 29 th day after the 465 is posted. I want to stress the importance of this point. Signing a contract before the ACSD is what we call the ultimate deal breaker. Funding will be denied if you sign a contract within that 28-day posting period and there s nothing we can do about that. We have to deny your application if you sign something before the ACSD. The reason we have this 28-day posting period is we need to allow service providers to contact the HCP and submit proposals. They ll contact you both in writing and by phone. It s important that you are open to requests from the service providers.

9 The ACSD is actually listed on our website. If you go to USAC.org/rhc, in the Tools section on the left-hand side of the page, you ll be able to find a link for Search Posted Services.

10 If you filter on fund year, county, city, state, or HCP number, there will be a listing for Posting Date and an Allowable Contract Selection Date. If you have any questions of your HCP s ACSD, that s where you can find it.

11 We encourage you to submit your Form 465 as early as possible after the window opens to allow time before the starting of the fund year to ensure a full year of funding and also allow time to review bids. The official start of the funding year is on July 1 st. Because of this, to allow a full year of funding, and including a 28-day competitive bidding period, the last day to file a Form 465 and receive that full year of funding is June 2 nd. Form 465s posted after that day will be prorated funding. It might take you more than 28 days to evaluate all the bids as well, so we encourage you to post the form as early as possible.

12 Moving on to the last topic: evergreen contracts. An evergreen contract is a contract that has been reviewed and endorsed by USAC. Evergreen contracts are not required to post a Form 465 or rebid for those services for the life of the contract. What this means is that an HCP may post a Form 466 as soon as it is available, which is typically well in advance of the July 1 st start of the fund year.

13 An evergreen contract must contain two authorized signatures of the health care provider and service provider; have a contract date after the ACSD or after the 28-day competitive bidding period; and must specify the service types, terms, and cost of service; and also identifies all of the HCP locations within the contract. This contract is submitted and reviewed by USAC for the conditions noted above, and USAC will send the health care provider a notice indicating whether the contract is evergreen; month-to-month, which is a non-evergreen but eligible for funding; or neither, which means it did not pass the standards for review, was denied for funding and most times, it was because the contract was signed during the 28-day competitive bidding period or before the ACSD.

14 Some things for health care providers to remember about evergreen contracts. Your contract must be reviewed and deemed to be evergreen by USAC otherwise you must post a Form 465 each funding year. If you receive notification that you have an evergreen contract, you should list the contract end date on line 29 so that service providers know when to contact you on service needs during the funding year or in future years. An example would be that a larger health care provider may have a contract that expires in two years and will begin reviewing the bids one year before. They would, in their line 29, state the date the contract expires, and also when they ll be reviewing bids so that service providers will be able to bid on the services ahead of time. One thing to note about the evergreen contracts is that if services or contract terms change in any way, health care providers should post a new Form 465 and go through the competitive bidding process again. These are any material changes including start and end date, and other information related to the contract.

15 For service providers, sometimes there is some confusion whether a contract is evergreen or month-to-month. I d like to note that if you are service providers, you may seek to confirm a health care provider has an evergreen contract endorsed by USAC and not just a long-term contract. If you re the current service provider and the contract hasn t been endorsed as evergreen, the HCPs must rebid the following fund year, even if you have a signed contract and it s important to differentiate between a signed contract over multiple years, and a multiple-year evergreen contract. All health care providers must entertain bids from service providers if their contract has not been officially deemed evergreen by USAC.

16 Some things to remember in the competitive bidding process. You should submit the Form 465 early to ensure a full year of funding and to allow time to review all competitive bids using your evaluation tools and your criteria that you ve developed. Avoid submitting incomplete and inaccurate forms and documentation and make sure you re aware of the ACSD. This is the most important piece of the competitive bidding period. Contact us if you re uncertain before entering into a service agreement. Don t assume a contract is evergreen without formal RHC confirmation. First time applicants with an existing contract should call our customer support center and anybody with any questions should call us before entering into a new agreement.

17 I mentioned the importance of the ACSD and a denial of funding. We do audit health care providers and ask them to return funds if they cannot locate documentation and demonstrate fair and open competitive bidding. The main number you need to remember is five years. If audited, a health care provider must be able to produce decisionmaking records five years after the end of the funding year and the service provider must provide documentation five years after the end of service.

18 This documentation includes any correspondence between health care providers and service providers, copies of the RFP if available, and the scoring tools and matrix, and written documentation of how you arrived at your criteria for judging the service provider. I also included a phone log here, but we do encourage you to keep everything in writing so that an auditor would be able to retrace your steps in how you made your decision in determining how you selected the bid and selected the service provider.

19 Thank you, Paloma. That concludes today s presentation. We will be posting this webinar and all questions that have been submitted during the presentation on the website very shortly. Thanks again.