Notice Of Intent To Sole Source By:

Vendor Name:

Contract Amount:

$281,525.00

Notice Publish Date:

May 23, 2023

Agency Procurement Manager:

Email:

Telephone:

The Agency hereby provides notice that it intends to enter into a sole source contract per S.C. Code Ann. §11-35-1560 with Vendor for the following supplies, services, information technology, or construction:

1. 2016, then-Governor Nikki Hailey signed an executive order directing SCDHHS to take over administration of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part C, referred to as BabyNet in South Carolina. SCDHHS assumed administration of BabyNet while the program was under Corrective Action Plan (CAP) with the federal Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). Included in the CAP was a federal mandate to improve timeliness of claims payments to BabyNet service providers. To achieve this goal, SCDHHS undertook the effort to establish data integration between the BRIDGES IDEA Part C case management system and the agency’s eligibility and enrollment determination systems (E&E) and its Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) to establish BabyNet membership and pay the claims submitted through BRIDGES. Yahasoft, who is responsible for hosting and maintaining the BRIDGES system, was to establish the X12 Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) transactions to deliver information among E&E, BRIDGES, and MMIS. As SCDHHS and Yahasoft were in the process of testing the new data interchanges, Yahasoft proved to be unable to provide basic information about the structure of its database, its development and release management process, or the code being developed to support data interchange for this project. SCDHHS was not able to develop and authorize a replacement system in time to comply with the requirements of its CAP response for federal funding year (FFY) 2019 which ended on July 1, 2019, and therefore acknowledged that the data integration requirements for this project was at significant risk to the BabyNet program. The immediate nature of the circumstances could not be acquired through normal procurement sourcing methods. Additionally, the start-up requirements necessary for any other contractor to accomplish this scope of work would be so time consuming as to further exacerbate the conditions, so it was not practical to seek formal competitive bids through the normal procurement process in order to meet the emergency. To ensure reasonable competition, SCDHHS contacted Greenway Health, TruBridge, and Public Consulting Group (PCG), all claims processing and revenue cycle service providers. Despite multiple contact attempts by SCDHHS, Greenway Health and TruBridge did not provide SCDHHS with more than general marketing materials and showed no willingness to engage in direct negotiation for provision of services. Of the three suppliers contacted for this emergency, PCG was the only supplier with requisite resources and technology in place to meet SCDHHS' aggressive deadline of deployment by July 1, 2019. Therefore, SCDHHS sought to contract with PCG for data translation and 837P generation services, acting as a clearinghouse of claims data for the program while SCDHHS thoroughly tested the 837P EDI transaction between BRIDGES and MMIS before Yahasoft deployed its solution to production. By using PCG as a clearinghouse SCDHHS was able to fulfill the requirements of its CAP response while also giving the BRIDGES Integration technical team additional time to test and acceptably minimize the risk of implementation for the Yahasoft solution. Failure to maintain these IT services would cause SCDHHS to fall out of compliance with the requirements of Part C of P.L. 108-446 of IDEA, making continuing compatibility of paramount importance. SCDHHS issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) in September 2019 to re-procure the IT systems and services for the BabyNet program. A Contract was awarded on March 25, 2020, under Solicitation 5400018456. Due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, SCDHHS postponed implementation of the new Contract until September 2020. The Contract was mutually terminated effective January 14, 2022. A new RFP is in development and is anticipated to be issued in FY 2023. This sole source will continue for the reasons stated above until a new Contract is implemented and operational. Once the new Contract is operational, this sole source procurement will be terminated. Therefore, SCDHHS must increase the amount of the award and the length of the contract to cover ongoing operational and change/enhancement costs to maintain the compatibility of the equipment.

Agency's justification for a sole source procurement may be viewed or immediately obtained at:

Rebecca O'Brien - Rebecca.OBrien@scdhhs.gov

PROTESTS:
Any actual or prospective bidder, offeror, contractor, or subcontractor aggrieved in connection with the intended award or award of this sole source contract, shall notify the appropriate chief Procurement officer in writing of its intent to protest within five (5) business days of the date this notice is posted. Any actual or prospective bidder, offeror, contractor, or subcontractor who is aggrieved in connection with the intended award or award of this sole source contract and has timely notified the appropriate chief procurement officer of its intent to protest, may protest to the appropriate chief procurement officer in the manner set forth below within fifteen days of the date this notice is posted; except that a matter that could have been raised as a protest of the solicitation may not be raised as a protest of the award or intended award of a contract.
A protest must be in writing, filed with the appropriate chief procurement officer, and set forth the grounds of the protest and the relief requested with enough particularity to give notice of the issues to be decided. The protest must be received by the appropriate chief procurement officer within the time provided above. Days are calculated as provided in S.C. Code Ann. §11-35-310(13).

Any notice of intent to protest and protest must be addressed to the chief procurement officer:

Materials Management Officer

(a) by email to:

Protest-MMO@mmo.sc.gov

(b) by post or hand delivery to:

1201 Main Street, Suite 600, Columbia, SC 29201

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