County Medical Services Program Issues RFP For Advertising/PR/Marketing

Purpose:

The County Medical Services Program (CMSP) Governing Board seeks to acquire the services of a qualified California-based marketing firm to support its marketing initiatives. The CMSP Governing Board invites proposals from interested marketing agencies with experience in brand development and management; marketing; social media strategy, implementation, and management; website design and development; and market research. The work to be performed will support CMSP Governing Board’s existing CMSP program as well as a new pilot project to provide primary health care services to undocumented adults ages 21-64, called Path2Health.

Background:

The County Medical Services Program (CMSP) was established in January 1983, when California law transferred responsibility for providing health care services to indigent adults from the State of California to California counties. This law recognized that many smaller, rural counties were not in the position to assume this new responsibility. As a result, the law also provided counties with a population of 300,000 or fewer with the option of contracting back with the California Department of Health Services (DHS) to provide health care services to indigent adults.

In April 1995, California law was amended to establish the County Medical Services Program Governing Board (Governing Board). The Governing Board, composed of ten county officials and one ex-officio representative of the Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, is authorized to set overall program and fiscal policy for CMSP. Thirty-five counties throughout California participate in CMSP: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Glenn, Humboldt, Imperial, Inyo, Kings, Lake, Lassen, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Modoc, Mono, Napa, Nevada, Plumas, San Benito, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne, Yolo and Yuba.

CMSP is funded by public funds through State Program Realignment revenue received by the Governing Board and county general purpose revenue provided in the form of County Participation Fees. CMSP members are medically indigent adults, ages 21 through 64, who meet all of CMSP’s eligibility criteria and are not otherwise eligible for Medi-Cal or Covered California. Enrollment in CMSP is handled by county welfare departments located in the 35 participating counties. All CMSP members must be residents of a CMSP county and their incomes must be less than or equal to 300% of the Federal Poverty Level (based on net nonexempt income).

Beginning in 2019, under the Path2Health Pilot Project (“Pilot Project”), the Governing Board seeks to test the effectiveness of providing primary and preventive services to low-income, undocumented county residents that are not otherwise eligible for CMSP and are eligible for and enrolled in emergency medical services under the Medi-Cal program.

The target population for the Path2Health Pilot Project is undocumented adults ages 21-64 that are enrolled in an emergency services only Medi-Cal program aid code and reside in one of the thirty-five CMSP counties. The goal of the Pilot Project is to promote timely delivery of necessary primary and preventive medical services to the target populations to improve health outcomes for the target population, reduce the incidence of emergency services utilization and inpatient hospitalization by the target population, and enable contracting Community Health Centers to redirect resources otherwise dedicated to providing services to the target population to other needs of high priority in the Community Health Center’s service area, including but not limited to assuring delivery of medically necessary services to CMSP enrollees and remaining uninsured county residents.

Scope of Work:

The scope of work will include the following:

1. Strategy

• Serve as the Governing Board’s expert advisor for the development and implementation of marketing strategies for the CMSP and Path2Health programs
• Develop a marketing plan focused on achieving the Governing Board’s Marketing Goals

2. Branding

• Create updated brand identities for the CMSP Governing Board, County Medical Services Program (CMSP), and Path2Health programs

3. Marketing and Public Relations

• Provide graphic design and content development for digital, print, and collateral material, as requested
• Manage public relations resources to accomplish the objectives as described in the marketing plan
• Provide strategic campaign support, including planning, development, and execution; multi-channel outreach; and branded material development

4. Digital

• Design new Path2Health website design (mypath2health.com) and perform development services, as needed
• Redesign and restructure existing CMSP website (cmspcounties.org) and perform development services, as needed
• Provide social media strategy development, content, and execution

5. Market Research

• Conduct stakeholder and member surveys, as needed

The selected firm will be required to acknowledge the Governing Board’s ownership of all of brand identities, websites, print and collateral materials and shall otherwise transfer any ownership and copyright of brand identities, websites, print and collateral materials to the Governing Board upon completion and payment of services.

Due Date:

September 20th

Address:

CMSP Governing Board

ATT: Kari Brownstein, Administrative Officer

1545 River Park Drive, Suite 435

Sacramento, CA 95815

California PR firms include Zeno Group & Edelman PR.