90DETR-S1578 Bid QA~1.pdf

# Question Answer

? Section 2.3 of the Insurance Schedule: Fidelity / Crime coverage ? Current policy limit is $1,000,000. Contract requests $5,000,000. Policy language incudes a Blanket Joint Loss Payee so State of Nevada would be included as Loss Payee if employee were to steal client property.  Is an umbrella policy sufficient to cover difference?

See RFP Section 8.3.

? Section 3.1 of the Insurance Schedule: Additional Requirements ? ?State of Nevada shall be an additional insured to the full limits of liability purchased by the Contractor even if those limits of liability are in excess of those required by this Contract?.  Carrier Additional Insured forms will only provide coverage for up to the limits of the contract (not the limits of the policy). Is this agreeable to the State?

This is acceptable. See RFP Section 8.3.

? Section 20: Contractor shall neither assign, transfer nor delegate any rights, obligations nor duties under this Contract without the prior written consent of the State.  Is such prior written consent by the State shall not be unreasonably, withheld, conditioned, or delayed?

Consent by the State shall not be unreasonably withheld, conditioned, or delayed.

4 ? Section 23: Confidentiality Is it possible that this can be a mutual agreement?

See RFP Section 8.2. and Terms and Conditions for Services section 2.1.7.

? How does Nevada BPC intend to interact with those who have claim holds? Are the volumes of those with 'fraud holds' to be resolved interactively, or, does Nevada intend to investigate existing applications passively?

Claimants are contacted via phone and/or US mail, for only PUA the software can contact via email as well.

The scope of investigations will be established during training.

? Does Nevada intend to use proposed solutions beyond the 60,000 claim queue that currently exists? Would the State integrate these solutions into a future UI system?

The State has elected not answer this question

7 ? What are some outcome examples in which the claim holds are released? Payments are released or a denial determination issued

8 ? What are examples in which claims are substantiated and applications are rejected? Meets the definition of misrepresentation or fraud

9 ? Does the State intend to award one contract through this RFP, or, will multiple vendors be selected? See RFP section 2.2.

Can the State elaborate on its expectations regarding the designation of Key Personnel, both generally and for specific roles?

It is up to the proposer who the key staff are, but the State would expect: hiring manger/human resources manager, trainers, superivsors, project manager.

data allowed ?offsite?, or will they host and we VPN into their network (GFE).

o Question: Is the State?s expectation that it will host all data, and the vendor will VPN in for any required data analytics and case management, or will the vendor be allow to securely extract and hold State data for analytics and case management purposes (providing subsequent data feeds back to the State)?

Contractor will be provided DETR Connect, remote access to data and systems necessary to complete work; including an email address and inbound call routing from DETR 800 number. Vendor must provide phone system for outbound calling. Data will be housed exclusively State systems and external storage is not allowed.

Within the document, it was mentioned several times that DETR has performed robust data analysis to place suspected claims on ?fraud hold.? Please clarify whether DETR needs and/or requires analytics capabilities as a part of this RFP?

Software systems or analytics capabilities are not part of this RFP.

13 Will BPC provide the vendor with applicable regulations and statute requirements for fraud and non-fraud determinations?

DETR will provide initial training using a train the trainer method on State systems, regulations, processes, forms and expectations. Training is expected to take two weeks.

90DETR-S1578 Bid Q&A

How will claims data be accessed by vendor? Will there be a periodic data feed from BPC to vendor?s processing facility, or will vendor be granted access to BPC?s data and administrative systems?

See Question 11

?Other factors? listed (and potential other significant fraud patterns) may require access to full claims databases in order to detect the magnitude of address, bank account, email address, telephone number, and other attributes being shared by multiple claims/claimants. Will the vendor be granted access to the totality of DETR?s regular unemployment insurance and PUA claims databases?

See Question 11

16 Is Section 508 compliance required? No

17 Is there a suggested headcount? What is the suggested length for training?

Headcount is estimated at 100, but the RFP does not require a specific number. Training is expected to take two weeks.

What system access will be provided?

Will providers without specific unemployment fraud detection experience be required?

See Question 11

19 Will all 60,000 claims with active fraud holds be the initial portion of the work? No

? What types of identification are submitted by the claimanint via the upload process? Driver?s License? Passport? Other types of ID?

Refer to RFP Section 3.2.2

21 ? Will copies of the identification submitted by the claimiant be available to the vendor for the claims review? See Question 11

22 ? Will claimants be contacted via phone or USPS mail? See Question 5

23 ? It is a requirement that the documents submitted by the claimant be used for the validation process? Yes

24 Q.1. How are these services currently being performed? In-house or under contract? In-house

25 Q.2. How many assignments does the State anticipate referring weekly? The State has elected not answer this question

26 Q.3. What was the past volume of investigations (number of cases referred for investigation?) See Question 24

27 Q.4. How many contractors were utilized in previous years? See Question 24

Q.5. If selected as a contractor, how will assignments be distributed? Is there a minimum or maximum number of assignments that a vendor can anticipate?

Assignment will be communicated in written format;

no.

Q.6. Could you explain the anticipated time-frame from the time a contractor is considered, selected and the time in which the contractor will begin providing services?

The timeline for award is listed in the RFP. Work should begin immediately upon execution.

Q.7. How are investigator's assigned cases? Are they assigned based on expertise in a practice area, previous performance, price, or another metric, if any?

Assigned based on training, performance, and need

Q.9. If a vendor excels at a particular type of investigation would the City consider retaining them for field surveillance or desktop investigations?

No

32 Q.10. How many assignments does the State anticipate referring weekly? The State has elected not answer this question

33 What is the required turnaround time on each claim verification? Depends on the type of work being performed

34 Q.12. Is this a "winner-take-all" contract or will multiple vendors be engaged? See RFP Section 2.2.

35 Q.13. Will the State provide a template they wish vendors to utilize for the completion of these investigations? See Question 13

36 Q.14 How will the State pay for services rendered? Per claim, hourly, or another method?

See Cost Schedule attachment. The State expects vendors to propose the method.

Can you please clarify if solutions that help relief the work load of claims for the investigators would be acceptable as a response? For example, Fraud & Identity solutions to return risk scores on the identity/claimant and return a pass or refer response? Or is the response strictly only for staff investigators to review the claims?

The solicitation is not requesting software solutions.

38 What type of solutions will the investigators be using to review the claimants? See Question 11

Sections 3.1 to 3.2.3 describes scope as identity fraud investigations. Section 3.3.7 seems to hint at investigation of separation and earnings issues. Should the proposed solution include tools and resources to perform investigation of separation and earnings issues, or should the proposal just include an explanation of the vendor's experience in these areas for purpose of showing expertise?

Experience.

Scope of work states "3.1. Awarded vendor will provide services to assist the BPC in investigating individual initial claims suspected to be fraudulent". To understand their nature and what has already be done, please describe the detection method used to identify the suspected fraud claims.

See Question 13

41 Will the awarded vendor be assigned analysis of claims not already suspect of fraud? Yes

Section 3.1 states "...vendor will provide investigative services similar to investigations conducted in-house by BPC". Please describe any current investigation steps of which are important to align.

See Question 13

Section 3.3.1 states "Explain your organization's approach to account management.". Does account management relate to managing the activities during the implementation project and/or on-going operations or does account management refer to claimant accounts?

Account management refer to claimant accounts

Section 1.1 states "This is an emergency purchase...". Does this cause any procedural or procurement steps that the proposing vendors must take into consideration?

No

45 How should the final proposal be delivered to The State of Nevada Purchasing Division?

See Terms and Conditions for Services attachment, section 2, Proposal Terms and Conditions.

a. Will contractor have access to other state records, e.g. state payroll taxes paid, JobConnect Activity Reports, Employer Verifications?

b. For data made available by the State:

i. Will Vendor personnel be required to access the state's legacy system to process data?

OR

ii. Will the state send Vendor the data for processing on the Vendor's systems?

c. Is Vendor's use of Microsoft Azure (a third party cloud service) for secure storage of the state's data acceptable?

OR

d. Is Vendor required to store the state's data on local servers at Vendor's facilities?

See Question 11

2. Section 3.2.1. - "Investigators must determine if personal identifying information (PII) matches."

a. What "matching" is expected to be done?

i. Will vendor be provided access to source documents (e.g. birth certificates) or to a database with PII in which to match information provided by claimants?

b. How will data be provided to Vendor?

c. Will data be in image files, meta data, CSV?

d. What format will the data be in?

This includes multiple questions, all of which have been answered elsewhere in the Q&A.

3. Section 3.2.2. - "Investigators also must determine if identifying documents submitted by the claimant are legally valid documents belonging to the individual providing them."

a. How will data be provided to Vendor?

b. What format will the data be in?

See Question 11

49 What is the expectation for the average number of issues to be completed each week? See Question 90

Is the State able to provide historical information or an estimate with respect to the length of time it has traditionally taken Nevada for resolution of investigations?

21 days

Will the contractor be granted access to the State?s Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation (DETR) systems to obtain information on previous or current employment? Are there other systems the contractor will be granted access?

See Question 11

4. Section 3.2.3. - "Other factors investigated"

a. How will data be provided to Vendor?

b. Will data be in image files, meta data, CSV?

c. What format will the data be in?

The State has elected not answer this question

5. Section 3.3.2 - "How will you ensure that at least 80% of work reviewed meets federal government standards for quality of the work performed?"

a. What specific standards are intended for Vendor to comply with?

See Question 13

The RFP states, ?Assist in contacting claimants and owners of SSNs to determine if a valid questionable identity issue exists?

and ?Assist in contacting claimant with frozen debit cards and 1099G corrections.? Will the State notify the claimant using mailings for claims flagged by the state for potential fraud? Is it expected the contractor will prepare correspondence using State letterhead or contact by phone?

See Question 5

Does the State intend to provide data extracts for the contractor to conduct data mining to identify claims as outlined in A through D of Section 3.2.3? How often is the State expecting the contractor to assist with these activities?

No

The RFP states, ?Issuing decisions regarding whether a claimant has refused an offer of suitable employment?? What information will be available to the contractor to determine if the claimant has refused offers of employment?

Information provided by interviewing claimant and employer

6. Section 3.3.6. - "How will you ensure confidential claimant and employer information is protected by the individuals you have hired to perform the work?"

There is not a question here.

7.

a. What security requirements are currently used by the state in protection of these records?

NIST 800-53

8. Section 8.9.4 - "The contractor shall provide to the contracting agency's Human Resource Department or designee the following documents"

a. Vendor conducts background checks through a third-party Vendor with state and federal searches based on 7 year address history. Would the state accept a certification from Vendor that it's employees have met the background check requirements described in A, B, and C of 8.9.4?

Yes

1. Will the current triggers and indicators used to decision a claim status of "fraud hold" for those indicated in the RFP be made available to the awardee? Can it be assumed that the contractor will utilize existing decision matrices in use by the DETR, ESD and UI to prepare and review the existing backlog of fraudulent filed claims?

See Question 13

2. Is the contractor expected to utilize the existing analytics that have previously determined a claim to be fraudulent, or does the contract expect that additional analytics and fraud indicators be recommended to further identify an addition population of fraudulent claims in backlog? Will the review include a look-back of previously processed claims to identify those fraudulent claims already paid, or does the scope of the contract include only those in 60,000 claims in process with active fraud holds?

Use current practices as established by DETR. Only currently held claims although newly discovered fraud may occur.

3. What is the current process for saving documentation from the BPC call center and/or email communications with the claimant?

- Can you specify how many different systems are actively storing information related to the claims with active fraud holds,

- Will the data continue to reside within the States systems (with the awardee given access), or will the data be provided to the awardee?

- If the latter, is the expectation that the awardee would utilize its own cloud-based analytics environment? If so, are there any restrictions?

- Will the awardee use the Nevada call center platform or is there a need for the third party platform?

See Question 11

4. Can you explain the current process utilized by BPC to make direct contact to claimants on issues related to identity checks, frozen debit cards and 1099G corrections? Will the awardee work under the State of Nevada's cover, e.g. State-issued phone number, State-issued email address, etc., or would the awardee be disclosed?

See Question 11

5. Is PUA the only in-scope unemployment benefits? Should consideration be made for additional unemployment benefit types that may have resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic?

Scope includes both traditional UI and PUA.

6. Can you provide more information on the current size of the BPC call center team (number of resources), and specify whether or not those personnel will be available to transition support functions and/or existing processes to the contractor?

BPC has 31 FTE, current 8 of which staff the call center. Personnel will be available to transition support functions.

7. Are the data sources/resources, third-party identity verification tools and/or vendors are currently utilized by BPC to verify identity and/or conduct criminal investigation into potentially fraudulent claims be made available to the contractor?

See Question 11

8. Has the ESD, UI or BPC team evolved any processes or engaged with any Financial Institutions to further evolve the authentication of claimant identities, or verify the destination ACH/Bank Account numbers utilized by claimants for payment of claims?

Yes

9. Is the BPC investigation team currently utilizing data provided by any trade or industry groups to support review of potentially fraudulent claims or claimants?

Yes

10. With respect to claim decisioning, is the State of Nevada expecting the contractor to make final determinations on the authenticity of a claimant's identity or the authenticity of a claimant's eligibility, or will the final review and approval be vested with the UI adjudication team prior to releasing payment?

Final review by DETR prior to releasing payment

11. Would the awardee be expected to track case status results and decisioning within its own systems and/or within the current State systems?

See Question 11

12. Does BPC have existing standards for validating document authenticity for government-issued photo ID, credit card bills, utility bills and Social Security cards?

Yes

13. Are these documents scanned into an existing database? Are there completeness standards for claimants to follow when uploading documents, e.g. must upload both sides of a driver's license, all pages of a utility bill?

Yes

14. Do these documents exist within a searchable electronic repository? Have there been existing searches and analytics performed on them? If so, would the awardee have access to the outputs of previous searches?

See Question 11

What is the volume of the expected backlog the selected bidder is expected to address? Knowing this answer will help the bidder more accurately gauge the level of staff and associated cost.

Approx. 60,000 issues or work items to be assisted with

75 Does DETR have an expectation for how many staff the bidder should anticipate in preparation for the proposed cost? See Question 17

Is the selected bidder expected to make the final determination for whether a flagged claim hold is released? Or is the selected vendor making a recommendation to state staff for final determination?

See Question 69

Is there an estimated number of new monthly fraud claims that will be processed by the vendor in addition to the existing backlog?

No

Would the state consider a bidder's internal process that covers the same requirements as a level one FBI background check as sufficient to meet this requirement? In our experience, the fingerprinting element of the background check can take up to six weeks.

Yes

If a bidder is currently performing work with DETR, are you willing to consider using the agreed-upon process for background checks, privacy, and security of staff if the bidder is selected to perform fraud investigations work?

Yes

To avoid delays in onboarding new staff, would the agency allow the selected bidder to perform a comprehensive background check that covers criminal history, government exclusions list and sexual offender database, in order to begin training and onboarding while awaiting results from the fingerprint background check to be returned from the FBI?

Yes

Is the fingerprint requirement expected for vendor staff currently doing work for DETR that may transition to the role of investigator?

Fingerprinting is required for all DETR, Contractor and subcontractor(s) staff

Given that bidders will likely have staff outside of Nevada, has DETR considered the impact on timing of requiring the fingerprint card from outside of the state and then having to submit to RCCD and the FBI. Given that this process could be lengthy, would DETR consider post-award discussion on an alternative method?

Yes

The Terms and Conditions for Goods state that they apply to "Goods" as defined in the Nevada Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) at NRS 104.2105(1). The RFP does not call for the delivery of UCC Goods. Will the State agree to delete the Terms and Conditions for Goods from the list of Contract documents?

If the proposal does not include goods, then the Terms and Conditions for Goods attachment is not applicable.

Is the State willing to negotiate changes to the insurance terms and schedule to reasonably align the language with the Contractor's insurance policies, provided the changes (i) do not alter the required coverage or limits in the insurance terms and schedule, and (ii) are actable to the State?

See RFP Section 8.3.

85 What is the anticipated headcount for this opportunity? See Question 17 86 What are the desired hours of operation? 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific Time 87 What is the estimated duration for training? See Question 17 88 Who will conduct training, the vendor or the State? See Question 13

Section 3.3.2 states: How will you ensure that at least 80% of work reviewed meets federal government standards for quality of the work performed.

Will UI make the referenced federal government standards available for potential vendors to review?

This Federal standards are available on the Department of Labor website

Section 1.3 states: Detail your willingness to have overall price for services delivered to be, at least partially based on a sliding scale related to the overall weekly production rate.

Section 1.4 states: If your company is not completing enough singular issues on a weekly basis to meet State needs, are you willing to increase FTE at no additional cost?

Will UI provide a number of investigative claims they would like the Vendor to complete weekly?

A sliding scale related to overall weekly production would be compared to our understanding of how much work an FTE can produce for the purposes of evaluation. Current staff complete 40-50 per day (200- 250 per week) and vendors would be expected to meet the same. Email counts would be higher.

91 1. Would the state of NV be open to utilizing a SaaS based platform to help detect fraudulent cases? No

92 2. Does any extraction of data occur from claimant uploads onto the BPC site?

No. Documents are images only in the system. Input of data can come from the documents.

3. Are there any additional data sources that are currently utilized to validate claimant requests other than what is stated in the RFP document?

No

94 4. Are these data already stored digitally or do they need an OCR for extraction? If digitally stored, what's the platform? See Question 92

95 5. Historical fraudulent cases - Are these stored as well? Yes

96 6. Has any AI/ML approaches been tested are utilized to date for claimant validation? ID.me is in use

97 7. How many FTEs does the BPC have to validate claimant requests? See Question 65

98 8. Fraud/SIU what present tool(s) and/or red flag lists are used to have a baseline on where they are and possible gaps The State has elected not answer this question

99 9. Can you share a current state process flow followed to determine claimant's status?

Validate identity, check for claim eligibility, check for red flags, resolve other issues.

100 10. What underlying technologies supports the claims payment lifecycle? This question is too vague to answer.

In the context of UIPL 12-01 (relying on guidance in OMB Circular No. A-76 (Revised) and OFPP Policy Letter 92-1), does DETR consider any part of the emergency fraud investigation services as described in the scope of work to be ?inherently governmental functions? 2. If so, is DETR open to the possibility that temporary workloads can be staffed by a vendor using staff who were at least hired and trained in a merit system ?

even in the absence of COVID-related ?emergency flexibility for personnel standards? first enacted in UIPL 14-20 (and subsequently reauthorized, currently through September 6, 2021)?

Non-merit staff are limited in duties allowed.

102 What mechanisms, if any, does DETR plan to provide for collecting claimants? identifying documents? See Question 11

103 Does the scope of work include making determinations on claims? See Question 69

1. In the context of UIPL 12-01 (relying on guidance in OMB Circular No. A-76 (Revised) and OFPP Policy Letter 92-1), does DETR consider any part of the emergency fraud investigation services as described in the scope of work to be "inherently governmental functions?"

The State has elected not answer this question

105 Can you share the expectation of work items to be completed in a week? See Question 90

106 Can you provide guidelines for quality of work expectations? See Question 13

2. If so, is DETR open to the possibility that temporary workloads can be staffed by a vendor using staff who were at least hired and trained in a merit system - even in the absence of COVID-related "emergency flexibility for personnel standards" first enacted in UIPL 14-20 (and subsequently reauthorized, currently through September 6, 2021)?

Non-merit staff are limited in duties allowed.

108 3. What mechanisms, if any, does DETR plan to provide for collecting claimants' identifying documents? See Question 11

109 4. Does the scope of work include making determinations on claims? See Question 69

110 5. Can you share the expectation of work items to be completed in a week? See Question 90

111 6. Can you provide guidelines for quality of work expectations? See Question 106

112 1. Can you please provide an overview of the claims data analysis that has been conducted to date? This question is too vague to answer.

113 2. What tools does the Benefit Payment Control Unit (BPC) use to conduct this analysis?

Fraud solutions provided by outside vendors as well as proprietary methods developed in house.

114 3. For those PUA claims that have been identified as fraudulent, what are the common risk indicators? The State has elected not answer this question

115 4. Can you please share a sample of scrub data from past claims analysis? This question is too vague to answer.

116 5. For those Regular UI claims that have been identified as fraudulent, what are the common risk indicators? The State has elected not answer this question

117 6. What triggers PAU funds being put on automatic hold? The State has elected not answer this question

118 7. For both PAU and Regular UI, how long can the funds be placed on hold? Until issue is resolved.

8. Given the legacy system that houses regular UI claims was only recently programmed to place fraud holds on suspected fraudulent claims, is it fair to assume potentially fraudulent funds have been paid out? i.e. Not placed on hold. If so, is there an appetite to analyze all Regular UI claims to detect and identify potentially fraudulent claims with a focus on recovering those funds?

That is outside the scope of work for this project.

9. What is the expected or required timeline from when a claimant submits a request through BPC to reaching a determination on whether to remove the fraud hold and release funds?

See Question 50

121 Can you share the expectation of work items to be completed in a week? See Question 90

122 Can you provide guidelines for quality of work expectations? See Question 106

123 10. Can data be transferred to the Vendor or does it need to remain within the State systems? See Question 11

11. Are you open to having a vendor conduct additional cyber-focused forensic analytics across either (1) the full PUA and Regular UI claims data or, (2) the subset of potentially fraudulent claims across both PAU and Regular UI?

No

12. Have the claims been prioritized based on fraud risk through the use of data analytics? If no, would you be open to having the claims be prioritized based on fraud risk?

Claims have been prioritized.

126 13. Does the State anticipate any portion of the work to be conducted onsite? No

Re Section 8.6.1, page 6: We typically subcontractors to be an entity with direct accountability for delivering services under a specific scope of work, rather than those entities we work with to source temporary staff that we supervise and oversee. Please confirm this assumption.

The employer of record for anyone provided access to State systems or data must be the Contractor or a listed subcontractor.

Bid Q&A for Export Report