By Clark Kauffman, Iowa Capital Dispatch
August 30, 2024
A company that won a state contract to provide managed-care services in Iowa is seeking a court injunction blocking the state’s disclosure of certain information in its bid.
OptumRx of Minnesota is asking a Polk County judge to declare that information the company provided the state in response to a solicitation for bids by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services is a trade secret and should be kept confidential.
The bid submitted by OptumRx earlier this year was to provide managed-care oversight and administrative services related to pharmacy benefits for Iowa Medicaid beneficiaries.
DHHS’ solicitation for bids on the work specified that information submitted by a bidder might be treated as public information by the DHHS once the winning bidder was selected, unless the entity that submitted the bid requested that it be treated as confidential.
On July 20, OptumRx submitted its bid in two forms: a complete, unredacted version and a version that was redacted to omit information the company considered confidential or proprietary.
On Aug. 16, DHHS awarded the contract to OptumRx. Three days later, DHHS sent the company a notice that the state agency had received a request for a complete copy of OptumRx’s bid.
The department told OptumRx it would have 72 hours, beginning on Aug. 20, to seek injunctive relief blocking disclosure. The department also indicated the company’s unredacted bid was being sought by MedImpact, a Michigan-based company that had submitted a competing bid on the project.
OptumRx alleges that the information sought by MedImpact would give that company an advantage over its competitors and that disclosure will serve no public purpose.
In court filings, OptumRx says the information it seeks to keep confidential “includes things such as employee and client management information, customer information and references, performance analytics, a description of its processes and metrics used to perform the requested services, project management and work turnover plans.”
The company alleges that “MedImpact regularly bids against OptumRx for similar Medicaid contracts,” and that MedImpact would “benefit from having such information for their competing bids in other states.”
OptumRx is seeking a court order temporarily and permanently enjoining DHHS from releasing the unredacted copy of its bid.
DHHS and Medimpact have yet to file a response to the court petition. A hearing on the matter has not yet been scheduled.
Deputy Editor Clark Kauffman has worked during the past 30 years as both an investigative reporter and editorial writer at two of Iowa’s largest newspapers, the Des Moines Register and the Quad-City Times. He has won numerous state and national awards for reporting and editorial writing.
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