Approve second amendment to Agreement No. PO 4385 with LocumTenens.com to add funding in the amount of $200,000 for 2023-24 and $215,000 for 2024-25, for a new contract maximum of $1,010,000, for the period of July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2025, for the provision of adult psychiatric services. (No general fund impact) (Sullivan)

On or about June 22, 2022 HHSA entered into Agreement No. PO 4385 (the Agreement) with LocumTenens.com for the provision of adult psychiatric services for eligible Yolo County clients including County residents conserved under the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act. County Behavioral Health programs have found the need to rely on short-term contracted psychiatric providers to augment their county staffing as recruitment and retention of such staff (i.e., Psychiatrists and Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners) is very difficult in this field. Direct contracting with LocumTenens.com provides professional staffing augmentation, recruitment, presentation and management which is the best option as this is a challenging process for the County.

On or about February 21, 2023 the parties amended the agreement via the first amendment to add funding in the amount of $295,000 for 2022-23 to account for the ongoing inability to recruit and retain psychiatry staff who wish to fill a vacant County position.

Approval of this second amendment allows for an additional $200,000 for 2023-24 and $215,000 for 2024-25 to account for the continued ongoing inability to recruit and retain psychiatry staff who wish to fill a vacant County position. HHSA has had to bring on up to three Locum Tenens staff to cover these vacancies and meet our current client need.

Performance Measures included in this Agreement are as follows:
Performance Measures are not associated with this Agreement.

County Counsel has approved this Agreement as to form.
Department of Financial Services, Procurement Division

On April 26, 2022, the then acting Yolo County Procurement Manager or designee approved a sole/single source procurement for these services.

Procurement reviewed HHSA’s request and determined that it was in the best interest of the County to renew the agreement, based on satisfactory service/reasonable prices and to avoid the interruption of County business. Without sole source approval and renewal of the agreement with the vendor, the County would lose the staffing of two psychiatrists and one nurse practitioner, resulting in devastating impacts to the County’s ability to provide mandated psychiatric care for County mental health clients. Factors considered, included but were not limited to:

1) the County’s ongoing difficulty in recruiting psychiatrists and nurse practitioners (prescribers) due to statewide staffing shortages; 2) satisfactory vendor performance--the vendor has been a County vendor for over five years providing competitive rates and documented successful performance in recruiting high quality locum tenens providers; 3) competitive pricing/cost savings; and 4) loss of three locum tenens providers from the vendor, who are actively on the HHSA clinic psychiatric staff contingent, carrying a combined case load of hundreds of County mental health clients. Without renewal of the agreement, these placements would be terminated leaving the County without outpatient psychiatric care providers for its mental health clients, severely disrupting the quality & continuity of care for these vulnerable clients.