AWARD
R -- Recovery - Consistency in Medicare Contractor Outreach Material for ARRA Related Materials
- Notice Date
- 9/18/2009
- Notice Type
- Award Notice
- NAICS
- 541611
— Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Office of Acquisition and Grants Management, 7500 Security Blvd., C2-21-15, Baltimore, Maryland, 21244-1850
- ZIP Code
- 21244-1850
- Solicitation Number
- ARRA91526
- Archive Date
- 10/2/2009
- Point of Contact
- Jessica B. Sanders, Phone: 4107861076, Debra Stidham, Phone: 410-786-5129
- E-Mail Address
-
Jessica.Sanders@cms.hhs.gov, debra.stidham@cms.hhs.gov
(Jessica.Sanders@cms.hhs.gov, debra.stidham@cms.hhs.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Award Number
- HHSM500200800043C000003
- Award Date
- 9/17/2009
- Awardee
- LCB Solutions, LLC, 913 Ridgebrook Road, S<br />, Suite 101C/D<br />, Sparks, Maryland 21152, United States
- Award Amount
- 98675.45
- Line Number
- 0006
- Description
- Background: CMS currently obtains services from LCB Solutions to aid in the research, development, and maintenance of Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) Provider education and training materials under contract HHSM-500-2008-00043C which was competitively awarded. Changes to Medicare reimbursement and/or coverage requirements are implemented via change request (CR’s). Notification and education on these changes in policies must be provided to Medicare contractors and providers. Therefore, once a CR is issued a companion Medicare Learning network (MLN) Matters Article is disseminated to communicate the policy change to the FFS provider community. These MLN Matters articles and brochures provide the most up to date, consistent and user friendly information and direction to the Medicare FFS community. Determination of Acquisition Strategy: The ARRA legislation requires changes to Medicare reimbursement and/or coverage requirements. It was determined to be in the best interest of the Government to obtain the services to educate providers and Medicare contractors on ARRA specific CRs from the LCB solutions via a modification to the existing contract (HHSM-500-2008-00043C) based on the following: 1)the services required are essentially the same as the services currently obtained under the current contract; 2)the additional funding required for the ARRA CRs is proportionate to the estimated cost of the original task order; 3)there are no changes to the SOW in terms of the general scope of the services. However, there are changes that merely specify that there will be ARRA specific CRs requiring the production of ARRA specific training materials (Brochures etc): 4) it is reasonable that both parties would have contemplated the need to specify requirements regarding legislatively mandated changes, thus it is reasonable that this type of modification would normally be expected for this kind of requirement; 5)additionally, this is the only viable option for maintaining the continuity of services. Determination of Contract Type: This contract action cannot be completed on a firm fixed price (FFP) basis. The contract being modified is a Time and Materials (T&M) type contract because prior to award it was determined the nature of work is unpredictable and therefore, the price/cost could not be estimated with a reasonable degree of certainty. The requirements as modified continue to be unpredictable in nature because the amount of time required to develop the MLN articles varies greatly depending on the complexity of the policy changes, subsequent clearance process, and iterations. However, instead of obtaining the ARRA funded requirements on a T&M basis, the Contracting Officer (CO) determined it in the best interest of the Government to obtain these services on a cost reimbursable basis and intends to negotiate a Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) amount. The CO made this determination based on the requirements set forth in FAR 16.6 01(d)(1), which states, “a time-and-materials contract may be used only if the CO prepares a determination and findings that no other contract type is suitable.” Since the Contractor’s accounting system was deemed adequate for accumulating and billing costs under Government contract by the Defense Contract Audit Agency in December 2008 (after award of the contract), a cost reimbursable type contract is now suitable.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/HHS/HCFA/AGG/Awards/HHSM500200800043C000003.html)
- Record
- SN01961186-W 20090920/090919000647-b50a44c18876203e40c61df3134fdc28 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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