Hillsborough County evaluators discuss three health-plan bids, record preliminary scores on pricing and operations

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY — A county evaluation committee continued deliberations on RFP24-24912 on a virtual meeting that reviewed three proposals to administer the county's self-funded employee health benefits, recording preliminary consensus scores on pricing and operations and flagging several technical gaps the committee asked staff to resolve before final recommendation.

The committee, chaired by Tom Fessler, the county’s chief financial administrator, discussed written proposals from Aetna, Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company and UnitedHealthcare and heard a side‑by‑side review and clarifications from Baldwin Group consultants. “This is the evaluation committee meeting of possible scoring for request for proposal, RFP24-24912,” procurement chief buyer Sakina Ford told attendees at the start of the session.

Why it matters: the committee’s work narrows which vendor(s) will be recommended to the board for award and shapes the terms (rate guarantees, administrative-service fees, pharmacy provisions and the use of vendor-provided financial credits) that will affect the county’s cost and employee experience for a plan the county pays directly as a self-funded employer.

What the committee did and where it landed

- Scoring. The committee recorded preliminary consensus scores for the 15-point Pricing and Discounts category, with Cigna receiving 13 points, UnitedHealthcare 12 and Aetna 11. In the 5-point Qualifications and Experience category the committee placed all three vendors at the top of the scale (5 points each). For the 15-point Reporting/Integration and Implementation category the group reached a working consensus of Cigna 14, Aetna 14 and UnitedHealthcare 10. These numbers were recorded as the…