PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands; Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 - The Turks and Caicos Islands Government (TCIG) held two public presentations with bidders for the contract to create and operate TCI's National Health Insurance Plan (NHIP) in a five-year private-public partnership.
The NHIP's Steering Committee' Evaluation Team of professionals, short-listed two companies out of the original six - that responded to the publicly tendered local and international Request for Proposal, that went out in June. The purpose of the bid process was to form a public/private partnership to help TCI quickly and cost-effectively implement our National Health Insurance Plan.
Yesterday, Tuesday, October 14th at the Regent Palms Resort conference room in Providenciales, ColinaImperial Insurance Ltd. and Redbridge Network and Healthcare Inc. made presentations as to how they would build local capacity for the operations of the NHIP and the information technology to support such operations.
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In a brief opening ceremony, Mr. Delton Jones, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Finance said Government wanted to make sure "that the operations, processes and information technology of our NHIP are state of the art, and provide the best value for money, and service quality for the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands."
And it was this reason, why Government was seeking an experienced private partner to help us in the early stages of our operations. "It is equally critical to us that we build our capacity here on the Islands in managing National Insurance operations," said Mr. Jones, therefore, "our public request for tender specifically asked for an experience partner who will train our local staff to take over responsibility for all NHIP operations over a five year period."
The Permanent Secretary noted that this is imperative, as Government cannot 'contract out' for service, as it is our position to bring in expertise to build TCI's capacity and train our people.
The National Health Insurance Plan will provide full coverage and access to health care services for the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Once the two new hospitals are open, it will allow all people who live and work in the TCI to use these world-class services and facilities.
The first presentation came from the Redbridge Group, along with their information partner Genelco. Redbridge is a management consultancy and reinsurance facilities manager, specialized in global life and health insurance operations and medical risk management. Their team consisted of Managing Partners Eugene Chinchilla and Frank Recio; Melvin Fletcher, Medical Director; Bob Marino and Barbara Apple from IBM and Al Mytty, a senior consultant.
Their presentation looked into the planning process; network development aspect; medical management; episodic care management; contribution to premature death; death by behavioral causes; impact of wellness programs; disease management. They explained their USA Claims process, and how such a process would be translated to the TCI case; customer service; metrics, reports and compliance; support technology through IBM Application Hosting; and a demonstration of the software capacities.
The second presentation came from a consortium team, ColinaImperial Insurance and their information technology partner Mitan Technologies and Plexis Healthcare Systems Inc. The consortium's mission is that by partnering with TCIG, they will provide the technology infrastructure, electronic commerce capability, insurance expertise, cost containment assistance through their association.
ColinaImperial Insurance Ltd has 100 years of insurance experience in the Caribbean region, and is Bahamas based. Plexis Healthcare has 90 installations worldwide, with eight in the Caribbean; originating out of Oregon, USA. Mitan Technologies has 23 installations worldwide, with five installations in the Caribbean, one being here in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Their team consisted of Bill Sharrett, International Representative for ColinaImperial based in Florida; Glen Ritchie, Vice President of Operations for ColinaImperial in Nassau, Mrs. Sharlene Rogers, Director of Health Insurance Operations at ColinaImperial; Sean Garrett, Vice President for Plexis Health Care Systems; Brian Hogan, CEO of Mitan International; with associate members Frank Riviana, President of Global Exchange and Dr. Tom Brickle, President of Santa's Health Corporation.
Following these presentations, the Technical Evaluation Panel will meet to recommend a preferred bidder to the Steering Committee. Members of the Steering Committee are meeting today to discuss the preferred bidder, and will make their recommendation to the Tenders Board, to which they will then meet on Thursday, October 16th - to ratify the Steering Committee' recommendation and make a formal proposal to Cabinet.
A due diligence process will ensue and a memorandum of understanding will be signed; at that point, the preferred bidder's name will be announced. Formal contract negotiations will be conducted through the Attorney General's office and hopefully a contract finalized by early December.
