The Arkansas Department of Human Services as administrator for the state Medicaid program through their Division of Medical Services (DMS) is in the process of issuing an RFP to provide for the Arkansas MMIS Replacement Project. The RFP was due to be released January 3, 2011 but has been delayed until the end of January.
The goal for this procurement is to provide DMS with the information management tools and business partners to assist in managing the Medicaid program. The procurement will have a total of 23 or 24 RFPs all of which will have common boiler plate. The system RFPs will include an RFP for the Systems Integrator and RFPs for system components. Prospective bidders may bid on one or more RFPs.
After the RFP is released, the plan is to have the RFP out for four months and then the state will conduct demonstrations and evaluate vendor products. Vendors will need to have a working product to demonstrate by next May.
Gene Gessow, the new Arkansas Medicaid Director, explained how the future success for dealing with ballooning costs really depends upon Medicaid and Medicare and private insurance aligning their processes. It is also necessary to address quality, costs, information and data sets so that everyone is headed in the same direction so that single provider communities have a clear signal from the payer community.
The MMIS Replacement will be designed to interoperate and exchange both administrative and clinical data through the Arkansas Health Information Exchange. Whenever practical, HIE and MMIS will adopt a common infrastructure and technical governance, however, as of yet, there has been no decision about a Medicaid HIE but it is a possibility.
The release of the RFP is anticipated by the end of January, RFP responses by May, product demonstrations by June, and the award to come in October.
For information, email Drenda Harkins at Drenda.Harkins@Arkansas.gov. When the RFP is released, it will be posted on www.arkansas.gov/dhs/NewDHS/DHSrfps.html#RFP.
