This repository will be used to handle Q/A, and will serve as the repository for the Automated Renewals project RFP release from the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) Division of Public Assistance (DPA).
The RFP schedule set out herein represents the State of Alaska's best estimate of the schedule that will be followed. If a component of this schedule, such as the deadline for receipt of proposals, is delayed, the rest of the schedule may be shifted by the same number of days. All times are Alaska Prevailing Time.
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Issue RFP on November 16, 2021
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Deadline for receipt of questions on Wednesday, December 15 2021 4PM
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Deadline for receipt of proposals on Monday, December 27, 2021 4PM
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Proposal Evaluation Committee complete evaluation Monday, January 3, 2022
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State of Alaska issues Notice of Intent to Award a Contract by Friday, January 7, 2022
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State of Alaska issues contract on Wednesday, January 19, 2022
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Contract begins Monday, January 31, 2022
All Questions must be received by December 15, 2021 in the form of an issue posted to this repository.
The Automated Renewals RFP is also listed in the official State of Alaska Vendor Self Service Portal.
You'll notice that we link to a number of working documents in our RFP and related materials. Interested vendors should be aware that all of these documents are subject to change because Alaska is continuing to learn more as we continue prototyping and working with various elements of the existing system to build out our DevSecOps capabilities. In addition to paying close attention to this repository, we encourage interested vendors to "Watch" what's going on in the main DHSS Modernization repo. We don't anticipate anything that we learn or change in this environment to alter how an interested vendor would staff up their proposed teams. As discussed throughout the RFP, we are interested in vendors that are open to such changes without requiring a static set of requirements at the time of the RFP.
The background for this overall eligibility moderization effort is detailed in the project README in the DHSS eligibility modernization GitHub Repo. (be sure to add yourself as a watcher on the overall eligibility modernization repository to automatically get updates about changes and upcoming procurements) In this acquisition we are looking to extend the recently successful efforts exercising our user centered design practices, modern software development methods and security focused continuous deployment processes.
In March 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law. The ACA is based on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148, as amended) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (Public Law 111-152). The law as originally enacted focuses on provisions to expand coverage, control health care costs, and improve the health care delivery system. The ACA also included provisions to streamline eligibility, enrollment, and renewal processes, for example, by requiring a single application for Medicaid, CHIP, and subsidized exchange coverage. The ACA changes for Medicaid came into effect January 1, 2014, replacing Alaska's Family Medicaid with MAGI Medicaid.
The ACA established a new methodology for determining Medicaid income eligibility for most children, pregnant women, parents, and adults. The MAGI-based methodology considers taxable income and tax filing relationships to determine financial eligibility for Medicaid. MAGI replaced the former process for calculating Medicaid eligibility, which was based on the methodologies of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program that ended in 1996. Some individuals are exempt from the MAGI-based income counting rules, including those whose eligibility is based on blindness, disability, or age (65 and older).
By allowing people seeking healthcare coverage to complete one application that determined which health and social services programs they or their family were eligible for, the Affordable Care Act made it easier for people to apply for and enroll in health care coverage.
More information about the State of Alaska Medicaid Program can be found here.
This work will ensure that DPA is able to comply with the requirements regarding ex-parte renewals in the ACA (42 CFR 435.916).
Important note - Questions or feedback about this RFP should be posted here - and not to the main DHSS project repo.
- Development of an automated process allowing for renewal of the appropriate MAGI Medicaid clients without eligibility worker intervention
- Reduction of the automated notices that are mailed to MAGI Medicaid clients with an upcoming renewal
- Lowering the overall costs DPA pays for postage services
- Ensuring that the solution meets all federally mandated and State of Alaska mandated security requirements
- Ensuring that the solution meets all federally required outcome based certification criteria
- Ensuring that user centered design principles are followed
- Simplifying the experience for MAGI Medicaid recipients to renew their Medicaid benefits
We've made every effort to allow for less burden in what we require from interested vendors. Although the RFP might seem to be pretty extensive, we're asking for limited targeted responses and believe we'll learn more about your team's approach and offer as part of your verbal presentation. As discussed in the RFP, we see this presentation to be free flowing vs. formal so that our technical evaluation team can ask questions based on what they've read or heard from your team.
We estimate a budget of $1,500,000 dollars for the completion of this project as outlined in the RFP. Proposals priced at more than this amount will be considered non-responsive. This will be a time and materials contract.
This contract term is planned to be Early 2022 - late 2022.
See CONTRIBUTING for additional information.