The vendor is required to provide telephone answering service of emergent calls and intends to use the results for comprehensive, team-based treatment, rehabilitation, and support for people with severe mental illness.
- The answering service’s main objective is too quickly and professionally triage and dispatch all calls received from clients or agencies; for the purpose of this contract the definition of an outbound call is: “when the service receives an after-hours call from a client or agency; it takes the information, triages the call and then notifies the appropriate community staff to report the emergency call”.
- Call Data: The answering service on a yearly average receives 1588 calls totaling 384.77 minutes; the community program client census could be up to 150 clients.
- On-Call Service Needs:
• Must have the capacity to manage a clientele of approximately 150 clients.
• Provide a live person when answering phone calls; no automated phone trees are permitted.  
• Provide answering services twenty-four (24) hours per day, three hundred and sixty-five (365) days per year.
• Calls shall not be placed on hold for more than one (1) minute; calls shall be answered in a courteous and professional manner.
• Provide coverage from 4:30pm to 8:00am weekdays and 12:00pm to 10:00am weekends and holidays.
• Required to perform service during times such as all agency meetings or in-service trainings; community will notify the vendor in advance when this service is required.
- Dispatch call to provide the following:
• All calls received by the answering service will be dispatched per pact requirements once the nature of the call has been established.
• Vendor will call the on-call phone number provided in advance; the pact on-call staff will vary daily; community will provide the on-call schedule to the vendor as needed.
• Provide the on-call staff with the name and number of the client or agency and if known, the circumstances for the call; the pact on-call staff person will respond to the caller.
• If a call is not cleared within 15 minutes, the vendor must call the pact director to clear the call.
-  Responsibilities
• Maintain a log of all received calls and length of each call.
• Provide a daily log of all calls received to the pact director; this log must contain at minimum the following:
1. Date of call
2.Time of call
3.Caller phone number (if available)
4.Length of call
5.Outbound call time to pact on-call staff or pact director
• Answer calls after three (3) rings.
• An alternate phone number in case of service disruption.
• Have an emergency generator, an uninterruptable power supply (UPS), or some type of adequate backup.
• Immediately notify the pact director in the event of a loss in service.
• Provide training to use the new system to community.
- Contract Period/Term: 1 year