Tennessee Watchdogs Call Out Department Of Health For $75M No-Bid Contract

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The Tennessee Conservative [By Jason Vaughn] –

The Beacon Center of Tennessee has called out the Tennessee Department of Health for awarding a $75 million no-bid contract to a healthcare agency for contact tracing services.

The deal was made with Xtend Healthcare, a Hendersonville company, originally at the height of the pandemic in June 2020.

But now, the contract has been renewed for yet another two months and the Beacon Center is raising the alert.

Mark Cunningham, Vice President of Strategy and Communications at The Beacon Center of Tennessee, relates that this no-bid contract is a major problem because multi-millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on this “gigantic contract.”

Cunningham goes on to state that the first contract was awarded with no bid at all, while the renewal contract only allowed for a very short period of time for debate.

After only five days total from when the Department of Health announced the bidding process, the contract was again awarded to Xtend Healthcare through January 31st, 2022.

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In an interview with NewsChannel 9, Cunningham said, “I think there are a couple of questions there. I think you need to say, ‘is contact tracing still necessary?’ I mean you can say it was necessary originally and I understand the argument. Does this still make sense for us? Because again these are tens of millions of dollars of our money going to them.” 

Cunningham states that the fact Tennessee government is not allowing us to compare prices for a contract this big is “really concerning.”

About the Author: Jason Vaughn, Media Coordinator for The Tennessee Conservative  ~ Jason previously worked for a legacy publishing company based in Crossville, TN in a variety of roles through his career.  Most recently, he served as Deputy Directory for their flagship publication. Prior, he was a freelance journalist writing articles that appeared in the Herald Citizen, the Crossville Chronicle and The Oracle among others.  He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor’s in English-Journalism, with minors in Broadcast Journalism and History.  Contact Jason at news@TennesseeConservativeNews.com