Free toolkit
RFP toolkit
The scoring rubric and question bank we use in client engagements. 22 questions, grouped by how much they actually differentiate vendors. Copy them straight into your RFP.
Step 1
Score every response on the same rubric
Use our weights or set your own — the discipline is agreeing on them before responses come in, so nobody re-weights to justify a preferred vendor afterward.
| Dimension | What you are actually testing | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical rigor | Prescriber credentials, titration protocol, comorbidity screening, and off-ramp planning. | 25% |
| Outcomes evidence | Quality of published results: peer review, sample size, control group, and follow-up duration. | 20% |
| Cost control | Ability to hold net pharmacy spend down: gating, biosimilar strategy, and risk sharing. | 20% |
| Data & reporting | Eligibility-level reporting, claims feeds, and whether you can audit the vendor's own numbers. | 15% |
| Integration | PBM, carrier, HRIS, and point-solution interoperability without custom engineering. | 12% |
| Member experience | Time to first appointment, app quality, care-team continuity, and support responsiveness. | 8% |
Step 2
Ask the questions that separate vendors
Most RFP question banks test whether a vendor has a marketing team. These test whether the clinical and financial model works.
Outcomes
Highest signal5 questions- 01Are your reported results intent-to-treat or completer-based? Provide both.
- 02What are your 6, 12, and 24-month persistence rates, on a claims-compatible key?
- 03Which of your outcome claims have been externally peer reviewed? Provide links or DOIs.
- 04What is the weight-regain trajectory among members who discontinued?
- 05Provide outcomes stratified by age band and baseline BMI.
Clinical model
High signal6 questions- 01Who employs the prescriber, and how is prescriber compensation structured?
- 02Provide your written escalation criteria from lower-cost agents to branded GLP-1s.
- 03Provide your titration schedule and the required clinical contact cadence during titration.
- 04How do you screen for eating disorders and mood changes before and during therapy?
- 05Provide your deprescribing protocol as a clinical document.
- 06What protein and resistance-training protocol protects lean mass during rapid loss?
Cost and contract
High signal6 questions- 01Itemize exactly what is at risk under your performance guarantee, and what is excluded.
- 02How is the baseline for any savings guarantee constructed, and who supplies the data?
- 03What is your fee for a member who enrolls and never engages?
- 04Model the all-in cost for a member who starts, titrates, and discontinues at month five.
- 05What are your price adjustment clauses, and under what conditions do they trigger?
- 06What are the early-termination economics at 12, 24, and 36 months?
Data and reporting
Moderate signal5 questions- 01Provide a redacted copy of the actual quarterly reporting package a comparable client receives.
- 02Will you provide member-level engagement data on a claims-compatible key?
- 03Do you grant an independent third-party audit right over reported outcomes?
- 04What is your eligibility file format and cadence, and who owns reconciliation errors?
- 05What happens to member clinical records at termination?
Step 3
Watch for these in the responses
Patterns that reliably predict a difficult contract or a disappointing year two.
Completer-only outcomes
A refusal to produce intent-to-treat numbers usually means the gap is large.
Guarantees that exclude drug spend
Protects their fee, not your budget. Ask what share of total cost it touches.
Vendor-constructed baselines
Whoever defines the baseline defines the savings. Negotiate methodology first.
No written escalation criteria
"We practice step therapy" without a document is a posture, not a protocol.
Reporting shown only as screenshots
Ask for the real redacted artifact. Demo dashboards are built for demos.
No deprescribing protocol
If nobody can describe how members come off therapy, nobody ever will.