MMS operations and enhancements

The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (SCDHHS) is seeking a comprehensive hosting, infrastructure, and operations and enhancements (O&E) contract for the Medicaid Member Management System (MMS), which serves approximately 1.2 million Medicaid beneficiaries. The solicitation requires vendors with demonstrated expertise in IBM Curam software framework to provide end-to-end services including data center hosting, daily system operations, maintenance, disaster recovery planning, system enhancements, and defect resolution. Mandatory minimum qualifications include IBM Curam HCR and CGIS certification, at least one completed IBM Curam implementation project, three years of hosting and infrastructure services experience for systems exceeding $1 million annually, and three years of operations and maintenance experience with IBM Curam implementations. The contract will have an initial four-year term from February 11, 2022, to February 10, 2026, with three optional one-year renewal periods, potentially extending to seven years total. Key submission deadlines include a pre-proposal conference on October 14, 2021, questions due by October 15, 2021, proposals due by January 28, 2022 at 11:00 AM, and award notification anticipated on April 5, 2022. The primary evaluation factor will be Total Cost of Ownership, with a significant $14 million modification pool for addressing emerging changes and enhancements throughout the contract term.

The solicitation does not specify any specific set-aside designations for disadvantaged enterprises. The current system integrator is IBM Watson Health, with Clemson University currently hosting the infrastructure, which consists of 391 servers across multiple environments and databases experiencing 1-2 TB annual growth. The incumbent vendor is expected to transition, as the RFP requires no work to be performed offshore and mandates that all contractor personnel be located within the continental United States. Contractors must maintain comprehensive insurance coverage, including $10 million per occurrence and $20 million aggregate for errors and omissions related to information security and privacy. The total contract value is structured with fixed prices for an Initiation Phase, Operations and Enhancements Phase maintenance and hosting fees, a Projects pricing component, the $14 million Modification Pool, and fixed Turnover Phase costs. SCDHHS already owns the IBM Curam SPM platform licensing, and the selected contractor will be responsible for providing and maintaining all hosting infrastructure, operating system licensing, Curam framework licensing through IBM, and ancillary software tools.