The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) announced on Tuesday an invitation for public comment on its Best Value Criteria, which it intends to use as part of evaluating the upcoming Medicaid Managed Care procurement for its STAR+PLUS program. The comment period ends on Sept. 17.
HHSC defines “best value” as “the best combination of price and quality based on fair, efficient and practical procurement decision-making and which achieves HHSC procurement objectives.”
Comments must be written in the “comments” section of the Microsoft Word document provided by HHSC and emailed to Jason Ochoa, contract specialist for HHSC. Ochoa will then provide the comments to other relevant HHSC staff for review, without consideration given to the identity of the submitting party. The commission doesn’t intend to publish a list of the public comments it receives.
STAR+PLUS provides health coverage to Texans who are disabled or over 65 and serves approximately 536,000 Texans. Cigna, Amerigroup, Anthem, Centene, Molina, and UnitedHealthcare are currently contracted to offer the program’s managed care plan. See a map of where these plans are offered here.
The commission previously awarded contracts for the program in Oct. 2019, but scrapped them due to inconsistencies in its evaluation process.
Texas will release the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the STAR+PLUS managed care plan in the state’s second fiscal quarter, between Dec. 2021 and Feb. 2022. They plan to award the contract between Sep. 2022 and Nov. 2022, and to implement it between Sep. 2023 and Nov. 2023.