Payment Cards for Patient Studies

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSA) is issuing Request for Proposal (RFP) No. 745-26-P37 to procure payment card services for clinical trial participants in Bexar County, Texas. UTHSA seeks a qualified supplier to provide a secure, scalable, electronic payment card system designed to streamline reimbursement processes for clinical trial participants' expenses including travel, meals, parking, lodging, and time-related burdens. The solution must replace traditional paper-based reimbursement methods with a modern system that improves administrative efficiency, reduces payment delays, and ensures consistency across multiple study sites. Required qualifications include a minimum of 10 years of experience providing payment cards for patient studies, HIPAA compliance capabilities, secure portals with multi-factor authentication, virtual card options, 24/7/365 participant support, API-based integration, real-time transaction visibility, comprehensive audit trails, and 1099 reporting with tax withholding functionality. Key deliverables must include financial integrity, auditability, data protection compliance, and adherence to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. Evaluation criteria allocate 20 points for cost, 20 points for reputation, 25 points for quality of services, 25 points for meeting University needs, 5 points for past relationship with UTHSA, and 5 points for exceptions to terms and conditions. The question deadline is May 20, 2026, with a proposal submittal deadline of 3:00 PM Central Time on May 29, 2026; all proposals must be submitted electronically through the Euna procurement portal.

Proposers must submit a completed Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) Subcontracting Plan demonstrating good faith effort to utilize historically underutilized businesses, which is a mandatory requirement for proposal advancement. Proposers must obtain TX-RAMP Level II Certification prior to contract execution if cloud computing services are provided, and must complete all required certifications and disclosures in the Execution of Offer document, including tax certifications, antitrust compliance, equal employment opportunity certifications, and Texas-specific statutory requirements. All proposers must comply with the Business Associate Agreement (BAA) governing HIPAA and protected health information handling, with prohibitions on using UTHSA's data for training artificial intelligence models. UTHSA maintains no incumbent vendor requirement and does not provide a guarantee of minimum or maximum volume, compensation amount, or service levels; historical data indicates UTHSA issued 3,584 cards in FY2024 with $949,612 in transactions and 3,959 cards in FY2025 with $892,121 in transactions. The contract will feature an initial term to be specified by the proposer, with University options to renew for up to three additional one-year terms under the same conditions; the resulting award value is not specified in the solicitation materials. The University reserves the right to conduct vendor presentations after initial evaluation, award multiple contracts, reject all proposals, or abandon the selection process if deemed in the University's best interest.