Medi-Cal, the state of California’s Medicaid program, has announced that it has cancelled a competitive bidding demonstration project that it had been working toward in the spring.
The Aug. 25 announcement did not state a reason for the cancellation, saying only, “DHCS (Department of Health Care Services) has decided not to move forward with this assessment and demonstration project and Request for Proposal (RFP). We are currently looking at other options to save costs for the Medi-Cal program.”
Medi-Cal had conducted stakeholder meetings about the competitive bidding demo in May, but at that time had not officially announced which geographical areas or which DME categories would be involved in the demonstration.
After the May meeting, DHCS said, “No final decisions have been made about the RFP; no final decisions have been made on the potential number of eventual contractors and their scope of services. Before making these decisions, we are seeking input on this concept from manufacturers and other interested parties until June 30, 2009.”
At press time, DHCS had not responded to Mobility Management’s request for an explanation as to why Medi-Cal had decided to halt the competitive bidding demonstration program and what other cost-saving actions Medi-Cal might be considering.
