County of San Mateo Vision 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 Vision Services Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit competitive proposals from qualified vendors to provide comprehensive vision 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 vision 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 vision services provider that can deliver high-quality, accessible, and cost-effective vision care benefits. The selected vendor will be expected to administer vision 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 vision insurance to its employees, retirees and their dependents. The employee 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 retiree plan is a fully-insured plan in which retirees pay a premium to cover the cost of claims and administration.

For employees, a “core” vision plan is offered at the County’s expense, along with a richer “buy-up” plan in which the incremental additional cost is borne by the employee. For retirees, a fully voluntary vision plan that approximates the core plan’s design is available at retirees’ expense. Currently, the core plan for employees has 4,051 enrollees, the buy-up plan has 1,695 enrollees, and the retiree plan has 1,100 enrollees. Including dependents, 16,140 lives are served by the vision program.

The current provider for the vision program is Vision Service Plan (VSP). The County conducts a RFP every 5 years for vision services.

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