RHODE ISLAND PROBLEMS: A computer contract in Rhode Island produced big headaches. The same compay has won a similar contract in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Andy Davis reported today on a huge piece of state business I’d been following — A $342 million seven-year contract the Human Services Department has decided to award to Deloitte Consulting to manage Medicaid and other welfare benefit enrollment over seven years. The cost, after post-award negotiations, is about $95 million higher than Deloitte’s original bid. Hey, it’s only tax money (mostly federal). Accenture, a competitor for the work, has filed an objection.

Having looked through some of the documents related to this deal previously, I’m inclined to add that the issue here isn’t only the overrun (Accenture probably would have added costs to meet DHS requests in post-award negotiations, too.) It’s honesty.

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Davis’ article touches on the point.

Deloitte had a disastrous rollout of a similar system in Rhode Island that led to a federal lawsuit and an enormous rebate by Deloitte. Stuff happens. But here’s the key point. Arkansas officials knew of the Rhode Island problems. It asked about them. Deloitte said it had not had to implement a “corrective action plan” for the system it installed in Rhode Island. Accenture argues that Deloitte indeed HAD been made to implement a “corrective action plan,” which I take is a term of contract art in the multi-million-dollar circles in which these firms compete for state government business.

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So, Accenture argues, the winner of a $342 million Arkansas contract didn’t tell Arkansas the whole truth. Oddly enough, it earned a few points in the complicated scoring system for its answer on that particular question. The scores of Accenture and Deloitte were a virtual dead heat.

The state procurement office will review Accenture’s appeal. No decision has been reached.

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The Deloitte experience in Rhode Island is worth considering. The D-G story today didn’t have room to explain how bad it was.

Deloitte was forced to issue a public apology. From local TV news coverage in April:

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The apology was made in front of the R.I. House Oversight Committee Thursday evening. It’s the first time Deloitte representatives testified at a State House hearing on UHIP, which is short for the Unified Health Infrastructure Project.

…. UHIP went live in September 2016. The computer system was supposed to streamline benefits like Medicaid, food stamps and child care assistance for hundreds of thousands of Rhode Islanders.

But almost immediately after UHIP launched, users reported missing benefits, hours-long call wait times to the R.I. Department of Human Services, and long lines at DHS field offices.

As Target 12 first reported a month after the system launched, the federal government warned the state it was not ready to live with the system. Deloitte officials acknowledged Thursday night they were also aware of that warning

The ACLU sued in Rhode Island because food stamp processing was so flawed. Deloitte earlier this year agreed to give Rhode Island a $60 million credit for the screwups.

Note that Deloitte is proposing a brand-new groundup system for benefit eligibility management. Accenture proposed to upgrade an existing system that, presumably, more or less works though. That can explain some of the cost difference.

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Says the cynic: This system couldn’t be any worse than the Hutchinson administration’s computerized Medicaid work compliance rule which has tossed 8,500 off health coverage with thousands more to come.

PS: A defender of Deloitte steps forward to say, hey, Accenture has screwed up too. See North Carolina.

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