MyHealth wants the contract to be rescinded and for the Office of Management and Enterprise Services to award it to MyHealth either directly or by reopening the bid process. OMES has until Jan. 26 to render a decision.
The preeminent concern in MyHealth’s protest is a contention that the contract evaluators didn’t consider the nonprofit’s final revised bid of $19.9 million, almost $30 million less than Orion’s $49.8 million bid.
The nonprofit’s initial bid, on Dec. 30, 2019, was $106.6 million. It lowered the price nine months later, on Sept. 23, to $41.7 million after OMES asked for MyHealth’s best and final offer, according to documents.
When the process was delayed beyond the bid timeline, OMES requested an extension of that price, which MyHealth said it granted on Oct. 22. But at the same time, the nonprofit also submitted its $19.9 million offer.
Two months later, the Health Care Authority announced on Dec. 23 that it had awarded the contract to Orion Health for $49.8 million.
MyHealth says it made significant progress with each revised bid toward achieving first-year deliverables and milestones to cut the price without reducing services offered in its original proposal.
Its protest takes issue with several aspects of the state’s evaluation criteria, including alleging that the evaluators “essentially ignored” its existing relationships and how far ahead it already is compared to the software company.
