Answer: Case Management needs to be used for home management when individual contacts are in a home setting.

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1 Regional Supportive Services to Specialized Populations and Care Coordination for the CCSP program RFP Bidders Conference Questions and Answers October 9, 2015 Please note that a revised UCM spreadsheet has been posted on the public website where there are changes reflected only in the Budget Summary Page. The revision is the addition of Regional Respite Voucher, Care Consultation and Elder Legal Assistance Program under the Service column. This revision does not impact Bidders applying for the Care Coordination for the Community Care Services Program (CCSP). General Questions 1. Question: Currently the Center for the Visually Impaired is providing community based instruction on ADLs and O&M (Orientation and Mobility) to visually impaired and/or blind seniors to promote independent living skills under the category of home management. This category is not provided in the offered services for the new contract. What are your suggestions for continuing to offer these services? Answer: These services could be provided under case management because individuals are being assisted with living independently; and under Senior Recreation if a group session were provided in a senior center facility. 2. Question: The service category Senior Recreation has a unit measure of one day session, contact, or event. The suggestion for replacing home management with senior recreation has been made. Would this category include individual contacts in a home based setting? Answer: Case Management needs to be used for home management when individual contacts are in a home setting. 3. Question: My question relates to 50% of total population over 60 years of age - does this mean that an agency must serve multiple counties to cover a geographic area that represents that amount or that within a county we must identify an area that reaches 50% of the total population that is over 60? Answer: The Bidder must serve multiple counties in order for 50% of adults over 60 to have access to regional services. Appendix D lists the population over 60 within each county. 3a. Question: Does it also mean we need to subcontract with a network of provider agencies in order to reach a greater penetration within the geographic area(s) selected? Answer: The proposal that the Bidder submits must meet the population requirements. The method used is at the discretion of the Bidders prospective. 4. Questions Combined: Please explain further the following statement in the RFP page 2, paragraph 2, sentence 2. A percentage of older adults over 60 in the ten county Atlanta region must have access to the services proposed. Please clarify the 50% again and how it relates to a specific proposal and agency capacity to serve, because one agency cannot serve 249,000. A) Is this statement referring to a service distribution of 50% special population (pg. 2) and 50% anyone 60 and over (pg. 26)? B) Is the first priority for the service to the special population? C) Is the potential client in the special population required to be 60 or older? P a g e 1 5

2 Answers: (A) The graph in Appendix D indicates the number of Adults over 60 in each of the ten county areas and the total number by adding the individual county s totals together. The 50% refers to the percentage of adults over 60 years of age in a geographic area. The area selected must be tied to one or more specialized populations, as identified in the RFP. (B) The RFP holds both the specialized populations and geography requirements as mandatory requirements of the RFP. (C) Yes, the recipient of the services is required to be 60 years of age or older. 5. Question: If you choose a geographic area that will serve 50% of older adult population for a particular service, will the ARC consider funding more than one provider in that service (pg. 26 last bullet)? Answer: The Atlanta Regional Commission will consider all proposals submitted by Bidders. 6. Question: Can you talk a little about the 1.5 Sustainability in the specialized populations RFP. Are you referring to continuity of services beyond what the Offeror provides while they re in the program, or does sustainability relate to what happens after they leave the program, should they leave the program? Answer: Sustainability refers to continuity of services for the individual served and/or linkage to resources and supports for the individuals served after the grant period ends. The RFP specifically asks the Bidder to state what specific engagement will take place with the clients to ensure continuity of service/care. 6A. Follow up Question: Does that refer to linking them to another provider should you choose to get out of the business, or is that more of a statement of how you identify resources once this contract is paid? Answer: It would refer to both. Sustainability is tied to asset and capacity building (what assets are within the community that the individual lives in); your strategy for growth and capacity building; as well as continuity of the care plan in the event of program closure. Financial Questions 7. Question: Is there a maximum amount that you are able ask for? Answer: The total funding available is listed in the RFP on page 5 of 26. Some of the funding is restricted to Alzheimer s and ELAP (Elder Legal Assistance Program). All or a portion can be proposed based on allocations noted. 8. Question: On page 6, under budget requirements, it talks about how all offerors must submit a budget narrative and a budget using the UCM. Further down the page, it says that the following services are exempt from unit cost reimbursement and it includes the Regional Respite Voucher. Are we using UCM for Regional Respite Voucher proposal? Answer: Yes, UCM is used for the Regional Respite Voucher Program. ARC is requesting that the UCM be filled out. The UCM is used to develop a unit cost and reimbursement method. ARC wants to be able to see how much is spent on the vouchers themselves, and how much is spent on other associated costs. 9. Question: What does it mean that they are exempt from unit cost reimbursement? Answer: Services that are listed as being exempt from unit cost reimbursement, will be reimbursed on a line item basis 10. Question: What if there was an opportunity to reduce overall cost, if we do that the way that it reads, we don t have the ability to issue more vouchers. Let s say we have no cost being charged to ARC, how many more vouchers could we issue? P a g e 2 5

3 Answer: You may reflect how you will leverage internal resources in the Budget narrative section of the proposal. In the UCM sheets, on Page 1- Personnel, you would enter the service, i.e., Regional Respite Voucher, assign cost (reduced or discounted) to the line items listed. On Page 2-Support, the service will auto populate across the top. Enter the Funding Allocation under the Total Allowable Cost row and in the row that says Enter Number of Billing Units enter the number of units based on extrapolated rate (i.e. discounted, reduced rate). This will give you the actual cost per unit of service based on the increased number of units you are proposing. On Page 3- Summary you would enter the total number of units under Regional Respite Voucher and split the cost of those units between ARC funding and other funding columns. 11. Question: If an agency is proposing to provide multiple services that come under the UMC but in addition they are proposing to provide Case Management services, do they include Case Management in the UMC even if it is exempt? Answer: Yes, the UCM spreadsheet (inclusive of all three tabs) still needs to be filled out and submitted with the Proposal. The sheets need to show all of the expenses that the Bidder has because those expenses would be reimbursed on a line item basis. Appendix A contains all three tabs that need to be included. 12. Question: On page 6, it states that all offerors must submit a budget narrative and a budget using the UMC spreadsheet. If I am under the care consultation, and it states that that this service is exempt from unit cost reimbursement, is it still necessary to fill out the UCM spreadsheets? Answer: Yes, the UCM spreadsheet (inclusive of all three tabs) still needs to be filled out and submitted with the Proposal. The sheets need to show all of the expenses that the Bidder has because those expenses would be reimbursed on a line item basis. Appendix A contains all three tabs that need to be included. 13 Question: Are there any limitations on the financial support funds from leveraged local resources (county, city and other private sources)? Answer: No, there are not limitations on the financial support funds from leveraged local resources. The Bidders are encouraged to use all available funding to provide the maximum support possible. Care Coordination for the Community Care Services Program (CCSP) specific. 14. Question: I don t see CCSP Care Coordination listed on the summary sheet on the Uniform Cost Methodology. Does CCSP need to go on the summary sheet? Answer: CCSP would go on the summary sheet of the UCM under case management 15. Question: In regards to CCSP, there is a reference to reciprocal preference law where if we are not a resident of the state of Georgia the same preference is only available to states that have reciprocal preferences. How would we find out which states have similar preferences to our own? How do we go about determining whether or not Florida would qualify as a reciprocal state? Answer: Georgia does reciprocate based on other states or preferences of other states; however this reference does not apply to services. You can view State-by-State Reciprocal Preference Data online here: Resident vendors in the State of Georgia are to be granted the same preference over vendors resident in another state in the same manner, on the same basis and to the same extent, that preference is granted in awarding bids or proposals P a g e 3 5

4 for the same goods or services by such other state to vendors resident therein over vendors resident in the State of Georgia. This preference is used for evaluation purposes only. All State Entities are required to apply this reciprocal preference. More information about the Georgia Reciprocal Preference Law can be found here: Question: Page 11 requires, Ensure that Offeror is an approved service provider by the Georgia Department of Human Services, Division of Aging Services and enrolled with the Department of Community Health (DCH) to deliver CCSP services. The DCH provides Medicaid reimbursements to enrolled CCSP service providers. How do we determine whether or not we are approved to bid on this opportunity? Answer: The offeror is selected by the Atlanta Regional Commission as the Area Agency on Aging and enters into a contractual agreement. The funding for care coordination is a regional allocation and is therefore not reimbursed through a Medicaid billing portal as a fee for service. Only direct service providers need to be approved providers by the Ga Department of Human Services. 17. Question: As it relates to the providers of services and leveraged resources outlined in section II. 1.0, (A) Are provider arrangements and relationships in place currently between providers and ARC/AAA?,(B) Does ARC/AAA expect the continuity care as provided by specific current service providers where Offeror is accountable and responsible for the care coordination of the services to efficiently and effectively leverage those services ensuring maximum benefit to individual older adults?; (C). Will Offeror be responsible for negotiating rates with all service providers, ensure appropriate staffing and resource all services in addition to the coordination and quality and financial monitoring of such services? Answers A: The Department of Community Health approves all direct providers of service and assigns a unique Medicaid number used for billing. B: Yes all services should be appropriately assigned and care plans should include strengthening and using umpaid informal supports. C: The awardee is the entity for responsibility for all provisions of the services funded by ARC. Direct service rates are non-negotiable and are set by Medicaid. The rates can be found in Appendix S of the CCSP General Services Manual % pdf 18. Question: Regarding CCSP, in the RFP document there is funding information including federal, state, and total funding for FY A) What scope of services are covered by that? B) Is it being matched, or has it already been allotted for the program? C) Whoever the Offeror is would invoice and then it would go against those funds? Answers. A. The scope of services can be found in section and the direct service rates can be found in the CCSP general services manual. P a g e 4 5

5 % pdf B. The total funding listed for CCSP for FY16 is the total allocation of funding for the provision of case management C. Yes that is correct; The Awardee would invoice the ARC. 19. Question: Referring to the use of Harmony Software, that there would be data that would be provided or interfaced. How would we use Harmony? Answer: A contract agency has access to the Harmony System and utilize it for all the client contact information, it under the provision of client management services and conditions as determined by DAS and the ARC. The use of the software would be part of the contract agreement. 20. Question: Are there transferable data files that would be provided that we can integrate into our system? Answer: Currently, the data is a stand-alone system. 21. Question: What kind of information would I be entering into that system? Answer: The Awardee would be entering a combination of data, client data including, but not limited to demographics, assessments, and service deliverables, unit cost and service numbers. These requirements can change during the duration of a contract period. 22. Question: Is there any additional cost to using Harmony? Answer: Harmony is a web based system that ARC absorbs the license cost for up to a limited number of users, per contractor. Currently contractors only incur the expense of additional users beyond the cap. 23. Question: What type of data is housed in the Harmony system? Is there an expectation of automated data file transfers to the Offeror such as qualifying client population? Answer: Harmony houses all client data, assessments, care enrollments and service deliverables. The contractor would be required to enter all data into Harmony. There is not a requirement for automated data file transfers at this time. P a g e 5 5