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COUNTY OF SAN MATEO
Inter-Departmental Correspondence
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San Mateo Medical Center
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DATE:
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June 6, 2005
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BOARD MEETING DATE:
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June 21, 2005
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SPECIAL NOTICE/HEARING:
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None
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VOTE REQUIRED:
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Majority
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TO:
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Honorable Board of Supervisors
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FROM:
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Nancy J. Steiger, Chief Executive Officer, San Mateo Medical Center
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SUBJECT:
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Amendment to the Previous Agreement with InfoImage and New Agreement with InfoImage
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RECOMMENDATION:
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Adopt a Resolution:
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1.
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Authorizing the execution of an Amendment to the previous Agreement with InfoImage to process, print and mail statements for Environmental Health, Mental Health and San Mateo Medical Center, increasing the amount by $25,000, in an amount not to exceed $556,834.15
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2.
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Waiving the Request for Proposal (RFP) Process
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3.
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Authorizing the execution of an Agreement with InfoImage to process, print and mail statements for Environmental Health, Mental Health and San Mateo Medical Center, for the term May 1, 2005 to April 30, 2006, in an amount not to exceed $220,000
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4.
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Authorizing the Chief Executive Officer of San Mateo Medical Center to execute amendments not to exceed $25,000
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VISION ALIGNMENT:
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Commitment: Responsive, effective and collaborative government.
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Goal 20: government decisions are based on careful consideration of future impact, rather than temporary relief or immediate gain.
The Agreement contributes to this commitment by providing uniform rates for laser printing, mailing and programming services to the Health Services Department and San Mateo Medical Center (SMMC), thereby reducing the costs for these services.
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Performance Measure:
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Measure
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FY 2004-05 Actual
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FY 2005-06 Projected
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Percent of statements mailed to patients within 48 hours of File Transfer Processing (FTP)
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95%
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98%
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BACKGROUND:
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After a Request for Proposal (RFP) process was conducted in October 2001, InfoImage was selected based on cost savings, responsiveness, and sufficient resources to perform the required services to Environmental Health, Mental Health, and San Mateo Medical Center. The term of the Agreement with InfoImage was January 1, 2002 to April 30, 2005, with a maximum amount of $531,834.15.
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DISCUSSION:
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The previous Agreement with InfoImage is being amended to increase the maximum amount by $25,000. Several factors contributed to this increase in expenditures. SMMC’s statement logics was restructured as recommended by the SMMC senior Siemens’ consultant, increasing the volume of statements to include patients that previously did not receive statements. New verbiage was added to SMMC statements to provide clear notice to SMMC patient population. The scan line project was set up to provide ease of payment posting through the Treasurer’s office, and a process of electronic file transfers to and from InfoImage was instituted to facilitate reconciliation.
Postage constitutes the highest cost in the contract accounting for 64% of the contract maximum. A consolidated Agreement ensures consistent and/or lower rates for the services provided by InfoImage. Pre-sorted mail in batches of 150 pieces or more going to the same zip code qualify for lower automation rates. Last year, 66% of the statements processed qualified for minimal to no postage discount. The current Agreement is structured to allow for the following: 1) 84% of our statements qualify for lower postage rates than were paid last year, 2) Printing costs will remain frozen at the 2005 rate for the life of the contract, 3) Supply costs will be frozen at 0.3% to 0.4% above the 2004 rate for the life of the contract and 3) Pre-sort fees have been reduced by 52% over the life of the contract. The only increase anticipated is due to the rate increases from the U.S. Postal Service.
The services provided by InfoImage include billing and mailing of invoices from San Mateo Medical Center (SMMC), Environmental Health and Mental Health. The Medical Center’s Business Office’s patient billing function accounts for a majority of the services provided by InfoImage. Each user has separate billing specifications because of the nature of the services that are being billed. SMMC bills for inpatient and outpatient services, Environmental Health for inspection fees and licenses, and Mental Health sends bills to clients as outpatient billing.
San Mateo Medical Center, in collaboration with the San Mateo County Treasurer’s office and San Mateo Medical Center’s internal Information Systems group, has implemented a program for automatic processing of patient payments. This program will considerably reduce the labor it takes to manually enter the payments into SMMC’s Siemens Invision accounting system. InfoImage has been a major contributor to this project in redesigning the statements to accommodate a scanline that will be read by the Treasurer’s office and converting the statements to an FTP file for direct processing by Siemens patient accounting system. InfoImage has also played a key role in the designing and implementing Insurance statements enabling SMMC to process them directly to SMMC’s Siemens patient accounting system. It is important to continue to contract with InfoImage to maintain the continuity of this project. Changing vendors at this time will compromise what has already been accomplished and force SMMC to redo a significant portion of work as a new vendor learns to catch up with SMMC processes.
Risk Management and County Counsel have approved the Amendment to the previous Agreement and the new Agreement. Information Services Department concurs that the projects in which Infoimage is involved would require reworking with a new vendor. ISD has recommended that InfoImage be retained due to the complexity of our Siemens System statement generation protocol and logics that were re-engineered with Senior (expensive) Siemens consultants six months ago.
SMMC is requesting that your Board waive the RFP process and approve a new one-year contact with InfoImage. San Mateo Medical Center will conduct a RFP within the following six months.
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FISCAL IMPACT:
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The Amendment to the previous Agreement increases the maximum amount of the Agreement by $25,000, from $531,834.15 to 556,834.15. Funds to cover the increase are included in SMMC’s FY2004-05 Adopted Budget.
The term of the new Agreement is May 1, 2005 to April 30, 2006, with a maximum amount of $220,000. The maximum amount includes anticipated expenses for volume increase, for continued programming costs associated with automatic processing of payments, and an 8% yearly increase in postage. Funds are included in the individual budgets for FY2004-05 and in the Recommended Budget for FY2005-06.
Department/Divisions
5/01/05-4/30/06
Environmental Health
$ 14,500
Mental Health
$ 8,500
San Mateo Medical Center
$197,000
GRAND TOTAL
$220,000
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