County of San Mateo Dental Request for Proposal

The Benefits Division within the Human Resources Department of the County of San Mateo is responsible for the design, administration, and oversight of employee and retiree benefit programs. The Division is located in San Mateo, California and serves a diverse population of active employees, eligible dependents, and retired employees across multiple departments and service locations throughout the County.

The Benefits Division administers comprehensive health and welfare programs that support the County’s workforce and retirees. These programs are structured to promote employee well-being, support recruitment and retention efforts, and ensure fiscal responsibility to taxpayers and plan participants.

The County is issuing this Dental Services Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit competitive proposals from qualified vendors to provide comprehensive dental coverage for its active employees and retired population.

As part of its fiduciary and administrative responsibilities, the County conducts a full market evaluation of its dental benefits approximately every five years. This periodic RFP process ensures that the County:

• Evaluates current market offerings and pricing
• Maintains competitive and comprehensive benefit coverage
• Ensures access to robust provider networks and high-quality customer service
• Confirms administrative efficiency and reporting capabilities
• Upholds fiscal responsibility while meeting the needs of employees and retirees

The nature of this project is to secure a dental services provider that can deliver high-quality, accessible, and cost-effective dental care benefits. The selected vendor will be expected to administer dental coverage for both active and retired members, provide a broad and accessible provider network, deliver responsive customer service, and offer strong account management and administrative support.

The County provides dental insurance to its employees, retirees and their dependents. The employee and retiree PPO plan is a self-insured plan in which the County pays claims costs, and also pays an administrator to adjudicate claims and administer the claim payments. The employee and retiree DHMO is a fully-insured plan in which employees and retirees pay a premium for the plan.

For employees, a “core” dental plan is offered, along with a richer “buy-up” plan in which the incremental additional cost is borne by the employee. For retirees, a fully voluntary dental plan that approximates a retiree design is available at retirees’ expense.

Currently, the DPPO core plan has 2,723 subscribers, the DPPO buy-up plan has 1,701 subscribers and the DHMO plan has 1,300 subscribers enrolled in the plan. The retiree plans have 2,505 enrolled subscribers. The total lives covered under all plans is approximately 16,000.

The current provider for the dental program is Cigna. The County conducts a RFP every 5 years for dental services.

The current agreement with Cigna expires on December 31, 2026. This RFP applies to both the employee plan and the retiree plan.