US Embassy Asuncion - LES Health Insurance

This Request for Information (RFI) is being issued to help the Department of State (DOS) better understand the capabilities, and availability of services offered by insurance providers as well as industry best practices related to procuring insurance coverage in Paraguay. Historical medical claims for PLAN 1 for Embassy Locally Employed Staff are presented below. There is no historical claims information for LE staff under Plan 2 (+ Estimated Quantities)

To gather the necessary information, specific questions have been listed in Section 3: RFI Topic Areas. DOS requests your responses to these questions, as the answers may indicate whether such an initiative is worth pursuing and, if so, how the initiative should be structured.

This is not a Request for Proposal (RFP), Request for Quotation (RFQ), or an invitation for bid, nor does its issuance obligate or restrict the Government to an eventual acquisition. All information received from this RFI will be used for market research purposes only. The Government does not intend to award a contract based on responses to this RFI nor otherwise reimburse vendors for the preparation of any information submitted or Government use of such information. Acknowledgement of receipt of responses will not be made, nor will respondents be notified regarding the outcome of the information received.

1.1 BACKGROUND

In today's budgetary environment, all government Departments must strive to spend taxpayer dollars as efficiently as possible. The DOS, like other Departments, faces the challenge of providing important services and products to the American people and represent American interests abroad, while simultaneously reducing costs.

An identified area of potential efficiency improvement is overseas health insurance for locally employed staff. Each of DOS’s over 300 posts abroad hires locally employed staff to support operations. Unlike Foreign Service Officers or other DOS staff based out of the United States, these staff require locally procured health insurance. DOS is looking to improve the procurement and administration of health insurance for locally employed staff, with emphasis on ensuring that each post has commercially provided health insurance coverage.

DOS is looking to industry to provide input around health insurance as it investigates solutions that will:

• Meet the required minimum benefits as defined in Appendix: Medical Coverage and Benefits

• Standardize provided benefits

• Ensure that all posts have health insurance coverage

• Reduce contract costs driven by customized policies

• Reduce administrative costs driven by direct reimbursements

• Lower premium costs through pooling

• Increase quality of service

• Adhere to government mandates and DOS policies

RFI INSTRUCTIONS

2.1 Responses should be submitted in Microsoft Word format and, excluding attachments, should not exceed fifteen (15) pages with Arial font equal to 12 pt.

2.2. Responses are to be submitted via e-mail to Mr. Grant Knutson at KnutsonGM@state.gov no later than 5:00 p.m. EST, December 4, 2023.