Guides
Medical courier proposal template with scope and fees
A medical courier proposal template built around scope, evidence annexes and a mobilization plan, with the fee schedule that survives a procurement review.
What to take away
- A proposal is not a longer quote. It has to answer a risk question, and the risk answer lives in the mobilization plan and the annexes rather than in the fee table.
- Mirror the customer's own specification, section for section and in their order. Procurement rejects on format and comparability far more often than on substance.
- The mobilization plan is the section that wins competitive bids. Almost nobody includes one, and it is the section that shows the transition will not hurt.
- Every claim in the document needs a basis you could produce on request. Write it assuming somebody will ask.
Nothing here states what a regulation or a protocol requires. Cite the agency for the framework and the customer's protocol for their expectations, and make no compliance claim of your own.
The structure
1. Cover and contents. Customer name, the specification reference if there is one, your entity details, the date and a validity period.
2. Understanding of the requirement. One page, in their words, drawn from the discovery conversation. Include the constraint they named: the latest receiving time, the site that closes early, the service they said was failing. Nothing persuades an operations manager faster than seeing their own problem stated accurately. The question set that produces this material is in the questions to ask on a discovery call.
3. Proposed service. The route or routes, the sequence, the windows, and what happens on days with nothing to collect. Separate collection windows from delivery times explicitly.
4. Scope boundaries. What is included, what is excluded, the waiting threshold, and how additional work is requested and priced. A proposal without an exclusions section will be read as unlimited.
5. Evidence and reporting. The custody record, the condition log where it applies, how quickly a copy is available, retention, and any periodic reporting you will provide.
6. Continuity. Cover arrangements, how the customer is notified of a substitution, and what happens if a vehicle fails. This section is why the customer is reading the document at all.
7. Exception handling. Site closed, material not ready, packaging failure, condition outside protocol, vehicle failure. Who acts, who is told, how quickly. Short, specific and unhedged.
8. Compliance position. What you carry, what training your people hold, what insurance is in place, and who confirmed each. Reference PHMSA's guidance on transporting infectious substances safely for the classification, packaging, marking, documentation and training framework, and reference the customer's protocol for their own requirements. Do not assert what any rule demands.
9. Mobilization plan. See below.
10. Fees. See below.
11. Terms. Payment terms, notice, the review mechanism, and how sites are added or removed.
12. Annexes. Insurance certificate, blank custody form, redacted completed example, exception procedure, training module list, references with permission.
The mobilization plan
This is the section that separates a serious bid. Set it out as a dated sequence from award to steady state:
- Week one. Site survey with the customer's contacts, confirming addresses, closing times, handover points, parking and badge requirements.
- Week one. Protocol review, agreement on record formats, and confirmation of who prepares consignments.
- Week two. Route design and a dry run without material, timed.
- Week two. Driver training on this account's specifics, including site conduct and the exception routes.
- Week three. Parallel or shadow running where the customer wants it, with the incumbent still in place.
- Week three. Go live, with daily contact for the first period.
- Week five. Review meeting against measured performance, with the dwell times you have observed.
Name the person responsible for each step. A plan with names reads as a commitment; a plan without them reads as an aspiration.
The fee schedule
| Element | Basis | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled route | Per operating day or per period | Lists the sites it covers |
| Additional listed sites | Per stop | Named sites only |
| Unscheduled collections | Included quantity, then per collection | States the response window |
| Standby or out of hours availability | Per period | Sold as availability, priced as availability |
| Waiting beyond the stated threshold | Per unit of time | Threshold stated in section four |
| Mobilization | One off or absorbed, stated either way | Silence here causes arguments later |
| Review mechanism | Annual, or on a defined trigger | The clause, not a number |
Two rules. Every line traces to a cost you can explain, and no line may be phrased in a way that could be read as unlimited. The structures behind each basis, and how each allocates dwell and standby risk, are in the sales and proposal guide.
Writing the claims safely
Everything in the document is advertising. The FTC guide to advertising for small business requires claims to be truthful and to have a reasonable basis before they are made, with qualifications clear rather than buried.
Practical translation for a proposal: state a response time only if you have measured it, define any on time figure and say how it is measured, avoid comparisons with competitors whose costs and terms you have not seen, and describe your compliance position rather than certifying it.
Before it goes out
- Check that every capability described is one you hold today, or is priced into mobilization.
- Check that the staffing implied by the service and the continuity section actually exists. If it requires a hire, the process is in how to hire drivers who last and the training burden is in the hiring and training guide, and the timeline for both belongs in section nine.
- Check that the territory this account implies is one you can serve without stretching an existing route. The readiness tests are in the guide to adding routes and territory.
- Check the format against the specification: section order, file type, page limits, submission route and deadline.
- Have somebody who did not write it read section seven aloud. If the exception answers sound vague, they are.
After submission
File the proposal with the survey data, the pricing basis and the correspondence, by account. When the contract is reviewed or repriced a year later, that package is the difference between a documented position and a recollection, and the IRS guidance on records a business should keep sets the retention baseline for the financial records inside it.
If you lose, ask what the decision turned on and record the answer. Across several bids the pattern is more useful than any individual result, and in this trade the loss reason is frequently something you could have fixed in section six.
Common questions
How long should a proposal be?
As long as the specification requires and no longer. Where there is no specification, the twelve sections above fit comfortably in a short document with the evidence in annexes.
Should fees be in the main document or an annex?
Follow the specification. Where you have a choice, keep them in the main document and decomposed, because a hidden fee section invites the suspicion that something is hidden.
Do I need references from the same sector?
They help a great deal. Where you have none yet, offer a trial route instead, with a defined review date, and let the performance become the reference.
What if the customer wants to change scope after award?
That is what the change mechanism in section eleven is for. Agree it in the proposal rather than negotiating it during a live transition, when your position is weakest.
