Anonymous Reporting Hotline Services

The vendor is required to provide anonymous reporting hotline services for include:
1. toll free hotline
• The contractor should utilize the county’s toll-free hotline number 866-565-9206 that is unique to the county.
• The county would like to retain this number after completion or termination of the contracted service.
• Calls to the hotline should be answered by a live intake representative 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365(6) days a year.
• The contractor should have sufficient staffing and technical capacity to answer multiple calls simultaneously.
• The contractor should provide representatives who are fluent in a variety of languages, including english and Spanish.
• Complainants shall be given the option to remain anonymous.
• Where this option is selected, the anonymity of hotline complainants shall be protected. calls will not be recorded, and caller identification information will not be maintained.
• The complainant should be provided with an option to receive follow-up communication regarding their complaint.
• The county should be entitled to an unlimited number of calls to the toll-free hotline.
• All hotline complaints should be entered into the contractor’s case management system within one (1) hours of its receipt of the complaint.
• Complainants should be provided a unique identifier to be able to call in with follow up information or to receive information on the case.
• The toll-free hotline should be accessible to persons with disabilities, including but not limited to individuals who use text telephone (TTY) and the telecommunications relay service (TRS).
2. Internet based complaint reporting system
• The contractor should provide an internet-based reporting system through a secure website, customized for the county.
• The website should include a standardized web form allowing the complainant to submit allegations through the website.
• Allegations submitted via the website should be appropriately routed to the designated county contact(s) by the contractor within one hour of the submission.
• Complainants should be provided with the ability to receive follow-up communication regarding his or her complaint.
• Complainants shall be given the option to remain anonymous.
• Where this option is selected, the anonymity of online complainants shall be protected. ip addresses will not be tracked for complaints submitted via the website.
• The county should be entitled to an unlimited number of complaint submissions to the
website.
• The website should be accessible to persons with disabilities.
• The website should be available in english and in Spanish at a minimum.
• The website should have the capability to accept attachments.
• The system should have the ability to route notifications of a report to multiple contacts either named or by type of allegation.
• The notice of a new report should not include the report itself but a notice to log into the system to see the report.
• Complainants should be provided a unique identifier when they log a report on the website to provide follow up information or to receive information on the case.
3. Staff
• Intake representatives should be trained to capture required information from complainants upon which to potentially initiate a review as deemed appropriate into the complaints and to ask questions as appropriate to solicit this information.
• Intake representatives should be trained in customer service and should maintain a courteous and professional demeanor with complainants at all time.
• Intake representatives should be trained in recognizing when a hotline or online complaint is a life-threatening emergency and should inform the complainant to contact 911.
• The contractor should provide a dedicated account representative as the single point of contact for any contract issues. the representative should be a senior staff member
4. Integrated case management system
• The system should generate and deliver an electronic notification to the county of all new complaints, no later than one (1) hour of a new case being created in the system.
• At a minimum, the complaint summary should include the date and time the complaint was submitted, the method the complaint was reported (via hotline or online), a detailed description of the nature of the complaint, and whether the complainant has selected the option for follow-up communication
• If so, requested by the complainant, the complaint summary will be anonymous as to the identity of the complainant.
• The system should generate and deliver an electronic notification to the county of all subsequent and follow up communication between the contractor and the complainant within one (1) hour of said communication being entered into the system.
• The system should track initial complaints, and any subsequent follow-up contact with complainants on the same allegations.
• The system should allow a designation of a broad case type including but not limited to fraud, waste, and abuse.
• The system should allow the county to input and track complaints received directly by the county into the system.
• The system should automatically assign a unique case number to each new complaint. case numbers should be assigned in a systematic and serialized manner.
• The system should allow a system administrator from the county to assign specific cases to other users within the system for investigation
• The system should allow the assigned county investigator to input investigative notes into the system.
• The system should allow the county to have a minimum of one (1) system administrator with full system access and rights to the county’s data and the ability to add new users and assign access rights and ten (10) end users with varying levels of system access and rights.
• The system should provide for the indefinite storage of the county’s complaint and investigative data.
• The system should provide a method for the county to communicate with complainants regarding specific cases, while continuing to remain anonymity, if requested.
• This correspondence would include providing follow-up information and asking follow-up questions to the complainants.
• The system should include the ability to reflect the status of a particular case, at a minimum allowing the case to be reflected as open or closed.
• The system should allow for the creation and downloading of monthly, annual, and year to date reports of program activity.
• These reports should be easily sortable by a variety of fields including date, nature of the complaint, and length of time from the initial complaint intake to when the case was reflected as closed in the system.
• These reports may be provided by the contractor to the county electronically or run and downloaded by the county’s system administrator.
• The system should be searchable.
• The county’s data should not be comingled with any other of the offer’s customer’s data.
• The system should allow the county to post instructions to complainants.
- Contract Period/Term: 12-Month
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: April 15, 2025