A copyable behavioral health EHR RFP template: sections for CRM, EHR, and RCM, level-of-care requirements, security items, a scoring matrix, and a timeline.
A behavioral health EHR RFP tends to go wrong in one of two ways: it borrows a hospital template that every vendor answers with a yes, or it splits admissions, clinical, and billing software into separate procurements and leaves the organization to connect the winners. This template is organized around three lanes, CRM and admissions, clinical EHR, and RCM and billing, so a buying committee can score one vendor across all three or compare specialist bids lane by lane. Ease is the unified platform an RFP can score across all three lanes at once, CRM, EHR, and RCM, instead of issuing three procurements.
Copy the sections below, fill in the bracketed placeholders, and send the same document to every shortlisted vendor so the answers compare line for line.
How to use this RFP template
This template assumes an organization with 50 or more employees, often across several sites, running a formal selection with a buying committee. Before anything goes out, give each part an owner: admissions for the CRM lane, a clinical lead for the EHR lane and demo scripts, billing for the RCM lane, IT for interoperability, migration, and security, finance for pricing, and a procurement lead for the timeline and final scores. A committee without billing staff tends to find its billing gaps after go-live, as denied claims.
Ask vendors to answer each requirement with one of five codes and one sentence of explanation:
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| A | Available now in the standard product |
| C | Available with configuration the vendor performs during implementation |
| T | Delivered through a third-party product or partner |
| R | On the roadmap, with a target date |
| N | Not offered |
Score R the same as N. A roadmap answer describes a product that does not exist yet.
The behavioral health EHR RFP template, section by section
Section 1: Organization background
Give vendors enough context to answer specifically about [Organization name]:
- Sites, the state each operates in, and the levels of care at each
- Licensed beds and average daily census for residential and withdrawal management
- Staff counts by role, and payer mix by percentage (commercial plans, government programs, self-pay, grants)
- Annual claim volume, split between professional and institutional claims
- Current admissions, clinical, and billing systems, with each contract's end date
- The three problems this purchase is meant to fix, in plain language
- [Decision date], the evaluation process, and one point of contact for vendor questions
Section 2: Scope by lane
Write each requirement as a task the vendor will demonstrate, not a yes-or-no question.
CRM and admissions
- Capture phone, web, and referral partner inquiries into a record that exists before a chart does
- Report admissions by referral source
- Run pre-admission screening and insurance eligibility checks before an admission is scheduled
- Move the inquiry into the chart at admission without retyping demographics or insurance
Clinical EHR
- Intake assessments and standardized measures such as the PHQ-9 and GAD-7
- Treatment plans whose goals and interventions tie to the services delivered
- Progress notes by service type, and group sessions that produce a note for each participant
- Medication management and e-prescribing, including controlled substances
- Admission, transfer, and discharge between levels of care, with utilization review notes
- Telehealth visits, co-signature, note locking, and late-entry amendments in the same chart
RCM and billing
- Eligibility checks, benefits verification, and authorization units used and remaining
- Professional (837P) and institutional (837I and UB-04) claims generated from documented services
- Charge rules that map a service to codes, modifiers, and revenue codes
- Remittance (835) posting, denial worklists, and patient statements
- Clean claim rate, days in AR, and denial rate, measured as the behavioral health RCM benchmarks define them
Section 3: Requirements by level of care and location
List every level of care you run, and ask the vendor to show each one with your scenarios.
| Level of care | Ask the vendor to demonstrate |
|---|---|
| Outpatient | Individual and group notes, recurring appointments, professional claims |
| Intensive outpatient (IOP) | Daily attendance, group notes per participant, authorization units, the billing path your payers use |
| Partial hospitalization (PHP) | Daily schedule and attendance, physician oversight notes, institutional claims |
| Residential | Census and bed board, daily notes, per diem institutional claims with revenue codes |
| Withdrawal management | Withdrawal scales such as CIWA-Ar or COWS, vitals, medication administration, step-down transfer |
For every location, list the state, billing NPI, levels of care, and bed count. Then ask the vendor to show one instance running several locations, with reporting by site, staff who work at more than one site, and a form added for one state alone.
Interoperability and ONC certification evidence
Section 4: Interoperability and certification
Certification is a claim in an EHR proposal that can be checked against a federal list. ONC runs a voluntary certification program whose disclosure rules exist so users are "fully informed about certain types of limitations and additional costs." Ask each vendor for:
- The Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) listing number for each certified module, and the criteria it covers
- Public links to its cost and limitation disclosures and its EHI export format documentation
- Live lab, e-prescribing, and clearinghouse connections, and any health information exchange connections in your states
- API documentation, with who can use it and what it costs
The export question matters most at the end of a contract. Under ONC's EHI export criterion, a certified product lets a user export a single patient's record "without subsequent developer assistance to operate," supports an export of the whole patient population, and produces files that are "electronic and in a computable format." Ask for a sample of both exports during the evaluation.
ONC describes information blocking as a practice "likely to interfere with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information," and the Cures Act applies that rule to developers of certified health IT. Ask counsel to review export fees, termination assistance, and any clause that limits who can connect to your data.
Data migration, implementation, and training
Section 5: Data migration
Ask vendors to describe the migration in writing, with names and numbers:
- Which data moves as structured data (demographics, insurance, diagnoses, medications, active treatment plans, authorizations, open balances), which moves as attached documents, and which stays in a read-only archive
- How many trial loads come before the final load, and who validates each one
- Who maps fields from your current system, and how many of your staff hours that takes
- What happens to open claims that started in the old system
- What migration costs, as a fixed fee or by volume
The guide to switching behavioral health EHRs covers what transfers, what can be archived, and how to lower migration risk.
Section 6: Implementation and training
- A phased project plan with milestones and the hours your staff will spend in each phase
- A named implementation lead and the number of configuration sessions included
- Training by role, plus a practice environment (sandbox) for testing
- Go-live support, on site or remote, and response times after go-live
- Which services are fixed fee and which are billed by the hour
The implementation timeline guide explains what drives schedule length.
Security questionnaire items to request
Section 7: Security and privacy
Under 45 CFR 164.308(b), a covered entity can permit a business associate to handle electronic protected health information on its behalf only if it obtains "satisfactory assurances," documented through a "written contract or other arrangement." A hosted EHR vendor usually fills that role, so request these items with the proposal:
- The vendor's standard business associate agreement
- The most recent independent security audit or assessment report, and the period it covers
- Where data is hosted, and which subcontractors handle your data
- How data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and who controls the keys
- User permissions, multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, and audit logs that show who viewed which record
- Backup frequency, disaster recovery targets, and the date of the last recovery test
- Incident response steps, breach notification timing, and penetration test frequency
If any program in scope is a federally assisted substance use disorder program, 42 CFR 2.12 applies Part 2's restrictions on use and disclosure to its records that would identify a patient as having or having had a substance use disorder and that contain substance use disorder information obtained for treatment, diagnosis, or referral for treatment. Ask each vendor to demonstrate how those records are labeled, how patient consent is recorded, and what happens when one is disclosed to an outside party.
References and pricing format
Section 8: Reference checks
Ask for three to five references: one of similar size with the same levels of care, one in your states, one that went live in the last 18 months, and one that moved from your current system. On each call, ask what took longer than the vendor estimated, how long billing took to return to normal after go-live, how support handles an urgent ticket, and whether they would choose this vendor again.
Section 9: Pricing format
Free-form pricing cannot be compared. Ask each vendor to fill in the same sheet:
- One-time fees: implementation, data migration, training, interfaces, and go-live support
- Recurring fees, with the unit stated: per user, per prescriber, per location, per bed, or a flat platform fee
- Transaction fees: clearinghouse, eligibility checks, e-prescribing, fax, and text messages
- Billing services priced as a percentage of collections, if offered
- Annual increases and any cap, plus add-on modules and their prices
- A five-year total cost, with every exclusion listed
The behavioral health EHR cost guide explains how vendors price and how to compare total cost.
Scoring matrix with weights
Set the weights before any proposal is opened, so a strong demo cannot rewrite what the committee said mattered. Each lane owner scores their section from 0 to 5 before the group discusses.
| Criterion | Weight | What earns a 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical EHR fit for every level of care | 20% | Every scripted scenario shown live, with no workaround |
| RCM and billing | 20% | Each of your claim types generated from documented services, plus authorization tracking |
| CRM and admissions | 10% | Inquiry to admission without retyping, with referral source reporting |
| Interoperability and certification evidence | 10% | CHPL listing, public disclosures, and sample exports provided |
| Data migration and implementation plan | 10% | Named staff, trial loads, and your staff hours stated in writing |
| Security and privacy responses | 10% | Every questionnaire item answered, with documents attached |
| Five-year total cost | 15% | A complete pricing sheet with no open line items |
| References | 5% | Every reference matches the profile you asked for |
Use one scale for every row:
- 5: shown in the scripted demo with your scenario, no workaround
- 3: available with configuration, or with a workaround the vendor showed
- 1: a third-party product, or described but not shown
- 0: roadmap or not offered
Multiply each score by its weight, add the rows, and divide by 5 for a total out of 100. Give every vendor the same three to five patient scenarios two weeks before the demo, and record results on the EHR evaluation checklist.
Timeline for running the RFP
A workable schedule for a multi-site organization runs about 16 weeks from kickoff to signature:
| Weeks | Step |
|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Form the committee, inventory current systems, write requirements, set scoring weights |
| 4 | Issue the RFP to a longlist of four to six vendors |
| 5 | Deadline for vendor questions; every answer goes to every vendor |
| 6 to 7 | Vendors prepare proposals, due at the end of week 7 |
| 8 to 9 | Score written responses and pick two or three finalists |
| 10 to 12 | Scripted demos and reference calls |
| 13 to 14 | Security review, sample exports, and best and final offers |
| 15 to 16 | Contract and business associate agreement negotiation, then the decision |
Work backward from your current contracts' end dates so implementation fits after signature.
Common mistakes in behavioral health EHR RFPs
- Copying a hospital or general medical RFP. It asks about surgical workflows and misses group notes, levels of care, and authorization units.
- Letting vendors run their own demo. A vendor-led demo shows the strongest screens. A scripted demo shows your workflows.
- Splitting the purchase without pricing the seams. Three procurements can each pick a good product and still leave the organization paying for interfaces, duplicate data entry, and reconciliation.
- Skipping the export test. Ask for sample exports while the vendor still wants the contract.
- Changing the weights after the demos. Record any change with its reason.
Scoring a unified platform against separate lanes
When an RFP accepts bids by lane, count the interface fees and reconciliation work of connecting systems from different vendors in each combined bid's five-year cost. A single-product bid has no such line.
Ease puts CRM, EHR, and RCM in one product with one login and one patient record, so a single response covers every lane in this template. Within Ease, a multi-location group runs every site on one instance, and admins configure which sites offer each level of care. Ease's EHR is ONC Health IT certified (CHPL listing 11073), and its ONC certification and EHI export disclosures are public pages, which is the evidence Section 4 asks every vendor to provide. Score it with the same matrix as every other bid.
Related reading:
Frequently Asked Questions
What should a behavioral health EHR RFP include?
Organization background, requirements in three lanes (CRM and admissions, clinical EHR, RCM and billing), requirements by level of care and location, ONC certification evidence, data migration, implementation and training, security items, reference checks, and a fixed pricing format, plus the committee's scoring matrix and timeline.
How should an EHR RFP weight clinical, billing, and admissions requirements?
The matrix here gives clinical fit and RCM 20 percent each, five-year cost 15 percent, admissions, interoperability, migration, and security 10 percent each, and references 5 percent. Adjust them to your priorities before any proposal is opened.
How long does a behavioral health EHR RFP process take?
A workable schedule for a multi-site organization is about 16 weeks from kickoff to signed contract: three weeks to write requirements, three for vendor responses, two for scoring, three for scripted demos and references, and four for security review, final offers, and negotiation.
Should a behavioral health organization issue separate RFPs for CRM, EHR, and RCM?
It can, but then the organization pays to connect the winners through interfaces, duplicate data entry, and reconciliation. One RFP with three scored lanes compares a single-platform bid with specialist combinations on the same matrix, with the cost of connecting them priced in.
What ONC certification evidence should a vendor provide?
The Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) listing number for each certified module, the criteria it covers, and public links to its cost and limitation disclosures and EHI export format documentation. Then ask for a sample single-patient export and a sample patient population export during the evaluation.
What should the pricing section of an EHR RFP ask for?
A fixed sheet every vendor completes: one-time fees for implementation, migration, training, and interfaces; recurring fees with the unit stated; transaction fees such as clearinghouse charges; billing service percentages if offered; annual increases and caps; add-on modules; and a five-year total with every exclusion listed.
