4599_Addendum_2_FINAL.pdf

March 8, 2023

Benefits Administration Program and Wellness Portal

Solicitation No. HR3-920-4599

Addendum No. 2

Question: Is the City interested in a wellness vendor-hosted platform that is external to the City’s server and technology environment and not a SaaS solution?

Response: The City is interested in a SaaS solution. For those questions that do not apply to a SaaS solution, you may respond N/A.

Question: As we support and maintain a wellness platform on a server that is external to the City, may we indicate “N/A” on the Compensation and Fees document within the “Annual Support and

Maintenance Fees” table and include our standard pricing?

Response: The support and maintenance fees are the annual fees you charge to your clients.

Sometimes referred to as subscription fees. If you charge an annual fee, please include it in the support and maintenance fees.

Question: Can we also provide exceptions to the Contract terms beginning on p. 47, which would not apply? May we provide exceptions to these terms beginning on p. 47 with our proposal submission or are they required to be sent 10 days prior to the proposal deadline?

Response: If you would like to propose exceptions to the terms and conditions beginning on page

47, please include them with your proposal in response to the RFP.

Question: Can the City provide current engagement and/or participation rates achieved by your current wellness vendor? If so, can you please provide for your program and/or platform overall, as well as individually for biometric screenings, completion of health risk assessments, health coaching, and the incentive program?

Response: The information available at this time is:

Currently have 1655 eligible members, only 879 are enrolled in the wellness portal and only 305 has earned points this calendar year. Employees who earned wellness incentive:

2020 – 709

2021 – 641

2022 – 601

Question: As it relates to the required scheduling and event management capabilities for wellness opportunities, can the City please provide samples of the types of events that the City will require the selected vendor to schedule? Do these events include virtual, online events and on-site events?

How many events does the City anticipate holding each year?

Response: Currently, the City does the scheduling by using Calendly, as our current vendor cannot support scheduling and event registration through the current platform.

The current vendor assists with the coordination of biometric screenings, health coaching, and blood pressure screenings. Anything else is done by the City. Attached a sample of our wellness point summary sheet.

Question: Requirement ID SV-1 requests that Proposers “detail options available for self-service administration and vendor managed administration or any other service levels offered.” Do the

Response Codes provided apply to SV-1 or should we provide a narrative response to this question elsewhere in our proposal?

Response: Please provide a narrative response.

Question: A formatting issue seems to have impacted the numbering of Requirement IDs in the

“Comprehensive Wellness Program Services and Wellness Portal” section and the “Challenge

Participation” task on p. 22 does not have a Requirement ID. We mention this only as informational so that our proposal is not viewed as having errors. If the City would like Proposers to fix the numbering of Requirement IDs in this section, can you please advise?

Response: You may fix and make note.

Question: How many and what type of staff (i.e., title, qualifications, experience) are currently administering the biometric screening events today?

Response: Please see Addendum 1 to the RFP for screening event information.

Question: WP-3 is specific to Telephonic Health Coaching. Is the City requesting any type of onsite, in-person coaching to be held at the time of biometric screenings or at any other point throughout the year? If so, how many events and locations does the City anticipate as opportunities for in-person coaching?

Can the City provide the top chronic conditions of your population today for which coaching is needed, or what health concerns are widely held among your population today? We ask this as the

City stated in the Pre-proposal conference call that while telephonic coaching today is held only for those with metabolic syndrome, the City is interested in increasing participation and offering coaching to all eligible participants.

Response: With our current vendor, we use to only offer telephonic health coaching. We would like to explore other options to see what else we can offer.

We are not able to provide information of possible chronic condition as this time. In the past, health coaching was offered to all employees. The City offered a special incentive (additional wellness points) for employees with metabolic syndrome as a way to incentive the use of health coaching.

Question: Can the City please detail the incentive program structure administered today by your current wellness vendor? What types of activities and rewards are available to participants using the current points-based system? Is the City interesting in learning about and implementing any other incentive and reward programs?

Response: Please see attached wellness program summary. This program is set up based on our current platform. We would review and make any necessary changes based on new platform.

Question: Will the planning and review meetings be held virtually or onsite? How many planning and review meetings does the City anticipate holding each year?

Response: Please propose your approach to conducting the meetings.

Question: Does the City require any key personnel to be placed onsite at City of Chandler office locations? If so, can the City please clarify the expectation for onsite vs. remote work, how many team members the City requires, and what types of qualifications it is seeking for onsite and remote work? Also, how many wellness vendor team members comprise the key wellness personnel team today?

Response: There is not a requirement for key personnel to be onsite. The City offers flexible schedules to employees and scheduled varies. We try to schedule wellness events with these schedules in mind. The City has one wellness coordinator.

Question: For all tables in these sections, the “Response” column may make detailed responses cumbersome to input and difficult to read. May we re-format these questions under the appropriate headers and requirement numbers, and place in questionnaire format to allow us to provide a full response in each instance? If there are character and/or word limitations, can the City please advise?

Response: Yes, you may. No, there are no character or word limitations.

Question: The first paragraph requests “a sample of what is expected from City resources/roles…”.

Can the City please clarify what type of information Proposers should provide in response to this request?

Response: This question is intended to help the City understand what is needed from the City during implementation and go-live. From your experience, for example, how many staff from HR with what skills/knowledge would be needed and how many hours do you anticipate they will spend on the project.

Question: How many FEINs do you have?

Response: One

Question: If a proposer has exceptions/clarifying commentary to the Business Requirements, where should those details be documented?

Response: Please provide a narrative either in the response column or as an attachment.

Question: Please expand on the requested integrations/support as it relates to public retirement systems (e.g., benefit deduction with for withholding from pension payroll, link to ASRS/PSPRS for retirees that choose to elect coverage through the retirement plan, etc.).

Response: The City of Chandler offer retirement benefits. Retirees receive a subsidy from either

ASRS or PSPRS retirement system. At this time, the entire retiree benefits process is manual and tracked on a spreadsheet. We are looking for a portal that can support retiree open enrollment, premium calculation and be able to calculate premium rates based on subsidy they receive. If no integration is possible, we would like a system to be the keeper, versus a spreadsheet. We also offer survivor benefits, follows similar rules as retirees.

Question: With respect to Business Requirement OE-6, the City requests the ability for retirees to submit required documents. Please expand on the documentation required (e.g., verification of new dependents or other)?

Response: Retirees fall under the same rules as active employees when making changes to their benefits. Active employees and retirees need to have a way to submit documents, such as marriage certificate, birth certificate, divorce decree, etc. through a secure portal. Current process, employee and retirees bring original in person.

Question: Business Requirement EN-3 notes an import for new hires from the existing onboarding system. Is this system separate from the system from which ongoing changes to employment data will be provided (e.g., FT to PT, pay change, Termination, etc.).

Response: We currently use NeoGov to complete new hires onboarding. In NeoGov, new hires complete all their benefit elections forms, as they do not have access to our system, and our current employee self-service does not have the capability for employees to do their benefits elections. Once new hires complete their enrollment form, their elections are manually entered in our HRIS system.

Question: Please confirm if the City is requesting Service Center support as a part of this RFP or is

Business Requirement EN-3 requesting the ability for a City administrator to have access to employee data and coverage?

Response: The benefits system will house all benefits and just should communicate with our current

HRIS system to make any payroll changes, if necessary.

Question: Business Requirement EN-8 requests support for COBRA and also FSA. Is the City seeking

FSA Account Administration services or just looking to confirm that FSA will be recognized as a COBRA eligible plan as it relates to COBRA notifications? If support is requested for Account administration, does this also apply to employees while active plan participants?

Response: The City currently uses Felxible Benefits Administrator for both COBRA and FSA.

Currently, COBRA process is somewhat manual, as our system is not able to support all the rules that trigger a COBRA notice. We are hoping to find a system that can also administer COBRA notices and compliance.

Regarding FSA, the system needs to be able to support and show employees elections at time of open enrollment. If it is possible to find to administer the entire FSA program, that will be a plus.

Meaning, send card, administer payments and reimbursements, etc.

Question: For the purposes of ACA, please confirm that the City performs FTE determinations (i.e., support for the tracking of hours, measurement periods, etc. is not requested).

Response: The City does its own FTE determinations and offers benefits accordingly. This is currently a manual process (paper form) as our system does not support enrollment for individual employees.

We are looking for a platform that can support ACA -1095 reporting. To run eligibility reports, generate 1095 forms, and if possible, file with IRS.

Question: The expectations from City resources/roles speaks to training of technical staff. Does the

City wish to retain responsibility for ongoing configuration changes to the benefits administration system or are you seeking support of this nature from the proposer. What ongoing responsibilities does the City which to retain future state?

Response: The City does not wish to retain responsibility for ongoing configuration changes to the benefits administration system

Question: For the purposes of the Commuter Insurance, is the City requesting support for plan enrollment within the benefits administration system? If yes, please describe how premiums are calculated (e.g., from the $200,000 amount for those <70 or based on $220,000).

Response: This is a City paid benefit and all employees are eligible. At the end of the calendar year, the City gives employees a total compensation statement, which includes commuter insurance.

There are no premiums, the City pays a flat rate.

Question: Please confirm if it is the City's intent to retain direct billing for benefits for retirees. If no, how many retirees are currently direct billed? How many retirees have premium withheld by PSPRS.

Response: Currently we have about 800 retirees. Direct billing is our current process based in our system limitations. Depending on the system, we would explore to change this manual process.

Question: Please confirm if the 800 retirees represents eligible or enrolled retirees? Are there any additional retiree populations that would need to be within the benefits administrator system for recordkeeping purposes (i.e., Retired from the City but have selected to enroll in benefits with ASRS and/or PSPRS.

Response: The 800 retirees represent retires who are enrolled in any of the City plans (medical, dental, vision or life).

Question: Please provide:

a) Annual Turnover (%)

b) Annual New Hires/ Re-hires (%)

c) Number of COBRA employees

d) Number of Medically enrolled

Response:

a. Not available at this time

b. Not available at this time

c. 6

d. 1446 currently enrolled in our medical plan

Question: Please provide the number of 1095s distributed last year

Response: We sent 2184 1095 forms. This number is inflated, as our system does not support returning employees and processes multiple forms for the same employee.

Question: What is the timeline for naming Vendor of Choice?

Response: Please refer to Addendum No. 1.

Question: Please provide the name of the ACA Vendor.

Response: This process is currently done in house.

Question: Are all the capabilities outlined for management of the City's retirement (457) plans within the ben admin platform a minimum requirement?

Response: The Benefits administration platform will only support or house employees making changes to their deferred compensation. The system needs to be able to set parameters to ensure employee and employer contributions do not go over the IRS max. Additionally, from a system set up, any changes need to be fed to our current HRIS system to ensure payroll makes any necessary change. We currently have another record keeper for the actual management of the retirement plan.

Question: Would the City consider a platform proposed that currently does not offer the online management of retirement (457) plans for employees, but will work with the City to implement on a mutually agreed upon date post initial go-live?

Response: Please see above.

Question: Does the City's current system allow employees to enroll/change/cancel their contributions to their 457 plans? Does the current system have limitations?

Response: Please see above. The system does have limitations. Employees use our employee self-service to increase their contributions, but a paper form to decrease or cancel contributions. We have had some challenges ensuring IRS max it set up for all employees and to take in consideration employee and employer contributions. Also, our system does not allow us to enroll or make changes for catch.

Question: Would the City consider a platform proposed that currently does not offer TPA services

(COBRA/FSA), but will be offering them before the end of the 2023 calendar year, at which time they can be implemented.

Response: We currently have a vendor who manages our COBRA and FSA but have experienced many issues. Ideally, we would like to have all this done by one vendor, but we will have to evaluate the entire platform to make a decision accordingly.

Question: What provider does the City currently utilize for Cobra/FSA administration?

Response: Flexible Spending Administrators

End of Addendum.

Christina Pryor, CPPO

Procurement and Supply Senior Manager

Email: christina.pryor@chandleraz.gov