PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Not so fast.
Senior officials in the McKee administration are taking back a previously awarded Medicaid contract worth $15 billion after two losing insurance companies argued the selection process was “fatally flawed.”
Following those complaints, Department of Administration Director Jonathan Womer — who also serves as head of purchasing — ordered the R.I. Executive Office of Health and Human Services to rescind and reevaluate the contract initially awarded to UnitedHealthcare and Neighborhood Health Plan in July.
Womer said he didn’t want the entire bidding process, which had already happened last year , to be tossed out. But he indicated he agrees with the losing insurers that there were some issues with how their proposals were considered, and directed EOHHS to reevaluate all proposals submitted for the contract.
“The lack of articulated, comparable factors influencing each bidder’s score makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether the scoring was arbitrary and/or capricious,” Womer wrote in an internal memo Nancy McIntyre, the state’s purchasing agent. “Thus, the evaluation memo is deemed insufficient.”