Benefits Consulting Services

The Vendor is required to provide all labor, materials, and equipment necessary for as-needed benefits consulting services.
- Goals:
•    Provide expert guidance to help the county make strategic, well-informed decisions that support its organizational goals. 
•    Deliver timely insights into industry developments, emerging trends, and legislative updates.
•    Develop and maintain reporting systems to monitor costs, utilization, trends, and forecasting.
•    Lead proposal development, including vendor identification, drafting, evaluation, and contractual analysis, ensuring alignment with county procurement policies.
•    Lead effective rate negotiations leveraging technical precision to secure competitive terms and performance guarantees.
•    Maintain ongoing vendor management support, including intervention in disputes or operational issues as needed.
•    Monitor and analyze claims, enrollment, and financial data to identify cost drivers and recommend actionable design adjustments.
•    Support audits and evaluations of benefits to verify that plans function as designed and that payments are processed accurately.
•    Provide benchmarking insights to ensure competitiveness, aligning our offerings with industry standards and best practices.
•    Maintain proactive compliance, delivering immediate alerts for critical developments and quarterly briefs on regulatory trends.
•    Review documents to ensure compliance and alignment with legislative or best-practice updates.
•    Maintain strong working relationships with county staff, carriers, and vendors, ensuring timely, responsive, and collaborative communications.
- Benefits Consulting
•    Provide consulting service, advice, and recommendations about benefit design, plan provisions, offerings, and programs provided to employees, retirees, and eligible dependents, including both self-insured and fully insured products and services on an ongoing basis.
•    Provide the county with general guidance, information, and advice on new developments, emerging trends, innovations, and/or state and federal legislative changes affecting the delivery of employee benefits, including changes in the local and national marketplace, new methods for improving cost containment in existing plans, etc. 
•    The consultant is expected to display innovative and creative thinking, actively and aggressively seek opportunities, and share those ideas with the county as appropriate in relation to the county’s goals and objectives.
•    Meet with the county on a schedule to be determined by each, typically bi-weekly. 
•    Arrange and/or attend vendor management meetings at regular intervals, as necessary, to monitor operations and issues, advise the county on operational concerns, and assist staff in problem-solving and coming up with viable resolutions.
•    Establish an annual service plan, including resource allocation and projected hours. Provide regular updates regarding ongoing consultant activities and progress on the plan. Prepare and present an update on the progress of assignments as outlined in the plan.
•    Establish and maintain strong relationships with County staff, contracted services providers, and vendors.
- Financial Reporting
•    Gather claims, enrollment data, and financial accounting reports from carriers, vendors, or benefits staff, as required.
•    Analyze, prepare, and present accurate and timely monthly plan financial status reports in an agreed-upon format with the county. 
•    Analyze, prepare, and present a summary annual report that includes all pertinent plan utilization and financial performance data to ensure that plans are performing as expected. 
•    Analyze concern areas, determine cost drivers, and make recommendations on plan design changes and/or contractual revisions that will aid in managing trend and costs while still delivering competitive benefit programs. 
•    Provide an analysis and benchmark comparison for all fully insured and self-insured benefit programs as part of the annual renewal report. 
•    Provide annual and multi-year financial claims projections for the medical, dental, and vision plans, including claim reserve recommendations and rate structure changes for the upcoming plan year, to maintain a strong funding status. 
•    Provide benchmarks for design, contribution strategies, premium rates, deductibles, co-pays, and coinsurance against national and local market surveys for comparison with other public entities and private companies—report on findings at least annually with renewals.

- Contract Period/Term: 1 year
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: December 05, 2025