1.8.2 - Limited Source JA - Behavioral Urgent and Compelling - BHS_3-12-21.pdf

FAR 8.405-6 (a)(1)(A)

Limited Sources Justification (LSJ)

Behavioral Health Services

LSJ No.: TBD

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple-Award Schedule Program, 41

U.S.C. 152(3), Competitive Procedures, and 40 U.S.C. 501, Services for Executive Agencies.

1. Agency and Contracting Activity. Identification of the agency, contracting activity, and specific identification of the document as a “Limited-Sources Justification.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency

(FEMA), Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (OCPO), proposes to award an interim

Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(c), Limiting Sources, for

Behavioral Health Services because an urgent and compelling need exists.

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved. Describe the action being approved and include the name and address of the proposed contractor(s).

DHS/FEMA/OCPO intends to limit the number of sources solicited pursuant to FAR 8.405-

6(a)(1)(i)(A) for the procurement of Behavioral Health Services in support of FEMA personnel at FEMA fixed (non-disaster) locations and disaster locations to Proposed

Contractor: Magellan Federal, 2800 S. Shirlington Rd. Suite 350, Arlington, VA 22206.

3. Description of Supplies/Services. Describe the supplies or services to be acquired.

Provide the estimated total value (including options, if any).

FEMA, Office of the Chief Administrative Office (OCAO), Environmental Safety and Health

Office (ESH) requires contractor support to help develop and maintain the broadest occupational health services possible to federal managers and their employees. The

Contractor shall work in a partnership with FEMA Headquarters to support managers and workers alike to design and deliver comprehensive solutions to meet FEMA’s occupational health needs by customizing programs to help build a healthier and more productive federal workforce and safer workplace for employees. To meet this need, FEMA requires behavioral health services oversight and management; support of behavioral health stress counselors;

and an employee assistance program (EAP)/enhanced work life program to be established

FEMA wide at various locations to include fixed site and disaster sites (including remote areas) within the United States and all Territories.

The new interim BPA will be a hybrid structure consisting of Firm Fixed Price (FFP) and

Time and Materials (T&M) contract line item numbers.

The total estimated amount for the interim BPA is $1,380,940.00. Call orders for fixed locations will use Fiscal Year (FY) 21 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) funding.

Call orders for disaster locations will use Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) no-year funds.

Estimated Total Value:

3 Month 3 Month Option Total http://uscode.house.gov/

BHS – Fixed $150,030.00 $150,030.00 $300,060.00

Behavioral – Disaster $540,440.00 $540,040.00 $1,080,880.00

Total: $690,470.00 $640,470.00 $1,380,940.00

4. Authority and supporting rationale.

This acquisition is being conducted under the authority of the Multiple-Award Schedule

Program, 41 U.S.C. 152(3), Competitive Procedures, and 40 U.S.C. 501, Services for

Executive Agencies, in accordance with FAR 8.405-6(a), Limiting Sources. An award will be made pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(A), because an urgent and compelling need exists, and following the ordering procedures would result in unacceptable delays.

Behavioral health services are currently provided for FEMA fixed locations and were previously provided for FEMA disaster locations through an Inter-Agency Agreement (IAA) with the Department of Health and Human Services, Program Support Center, Federal

Occupational Health (FOH). In March of 2020, FOH indicated that it would not extend the

IAA. FEMA has diligently worked on completing a Behavioral Health Services contract;

however, award and full implementation of services is not anticipated until June 2021. FOH stopped providing behavioral health services for FEMA disaster locations on September 30, 2020 creating a gap in coverage for disaster operations and will stop providing behavioral health services for fixed locations on January 31, 2021. Due to the impact that COVID-19 has had on an already stressed workforce, FEMA has an urgent and compelling need to continue to provide behavioral health services in the interim while it competes the full contract for the required behavioral health services.

Some of the routine stressors that FEMA employees must contend with daily include long hours, remote or isolated locations, family separation, and daily interaction with survivors.

All of this is compounded by the fact that FEMA employees are engaging with survivors in real time while the United States is going through an unprecedented global pandemic.

COVID-19 has infected nearly 5% of the population, 16,000,000 people in the United States.

The mortality rate is approximately 2% of those people that are infected. FEMA’s own infection rate for our employees is approximately 0.87% of those individuals that have been tested. While this number is significantly lower than the national average, we ask our employees to continue to respond to disasters. When they do, we expect them to work long hours, that may exceed a 12-hour shift. We ask our employees to live in hotels and responder base camps with few amenities and comforts. Our work force is socially distant while working and no other night activities are available making human social interaction harder to meet under these conditions. While in years past, we have deployed Behavioral Health professionals to be embedded within our work force, the current agreement has discontinued any BHS being offered to deployed employees which has increased the need to have these services in place at a time when these stressors are being amplified by the pandemic response around the country on top of all other disasters they respond to.

As a result, FEMA intends on awarding the Behavioral Health Services interim contract to

Magellan Federal, DUNS 830333824, because it is the only vendor uniquely qualified to perform the Behavioral Health Services interim contract required at this time, as they are the current subcontractor under the existing IAA with FOH. Based on the urgent and compelling need for this contract, it is uniquely positioned to be able to provide continuity of operations with the least impact on operations during the transition from the FOH IAA to a permanent replacement contract. It has the capacity to support FEMA’s disaster operations without a lapse in coverage. The Contract provider for this effort has already established the infrastructure to support this contract, as this is the current service provider that manages this program for FOH. By integrating this contract, this will prevent, to the highest degree possible, a lapse in coverage. Any such lapse in services could impact the Behavioral Health

Services that are critical to the well-being of FEMA’s federal employees.

5. Determination by the ordering activity contracting officer that the anticipated order represents the best value consistent with FAR 8.404(d).

The Contracting Officer has determined that issuing the proposed bridge BPA to Magellan

Federal for the provision of interim behavioral health services represents the best value to meet the Government’s immediate need. Price reasonableness is based on discussions/negotiations with Magellan Federal in which it notified the Contracting Officer that its pricing is based on urgency of the mission, length of service, population, lack of firm information, unknown quantities, duration of work and location. Because FEMA has so many uncertain areas, the vendor has to create a business model to accommodate this requirement.

However, the Contracting Officer will ensure that the BPA prices are consistent with what

FEMA has paid for these services historically. The Contracting Officer will also utilize the

Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) which includes a point estimate to calculate the estimated cost. The point estimate is used to determine the historical inflation rate and show escalation costs. Because these interim contracts will be structured with T&M contract line items for services conducted at the disaster sites, labor costs will be reimbursed for actual hours worked and travel costs will be reimbursed for only reasonable, allowable, and allocable costs. These measures will provide FEMA confidence that cost will not substantially increase for this action and will be used to ensure fair and reasonable pricing.

Finally, this BPA will be placed in accordance with FAR 8.404, “Use of Federal Supply

Schedules.” The General Services Administration (GSA) has already negotiated fair and reasonable pricing rates. Discounts to these GSA schedule rates will be requested.

Additionally, prior to issuance of orders, the ordering activity will consider the level of effort and the mix of labor proposed to perform the specific task being ordered in order to determine that the total price is reasonable. The contractor’s labor mix and level of effort will also be compared to the IGCE.

6. A description of the market research conducted among schedule holders and the results, or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

The market research for this effort has been conducted on a continual basis since March

2020. An analysis of the information available revealed that there are several vendors available capable of providing behavioral health services; however, these sources cannot provide the required services by January 31, 2021. To determine if these vendors were capable of providing a proposal and conduct the services needed for the Behavioral Health

Services by the requirement timeframe, the Contracting Officer reached out to all six vendors that responded to the Request for Information (RFI) conducted during market research to include Maximus Federal, SUMO Medical Staffing, UMAA Associates, Workcare, ServeFed, and EGA Associates. The vendors indicated that they would need at least 30- to

45-days to review the Request for Proposal (RFP) and prepare a proposal for submittal.

Additionally, they would need at least 45-days for transition time to begin services. Other limitations discovered by the program office during the market research that would prevent any new vendors from providing the required services needed within FEMA’s required timeframe include security adjudication, transition of workloads to new contractors, staffing of call centers (previous services must be closed under FOH Support Contract, and reopened under the new contract), implementing privacy processes, and the procurement acquisition lead time for the new awards.

7. Any other facts supporting the limited-sources justification. Additional facts may be stated in this section. If there are no additional facts, you must state that here.

The Program Office started preparing the procurement package documents for a competitive package as soon as it was notified that FOH would not extend the existing IAA. Seeking additional sources for this action is not practical under these circumstances because the transition between the re-compete contract and this urgent need to avoid a gap in coverage requires that FEMA contract with the existing contractor that is currently providing these services under the IAA, as they can transition the quickest (because they have the infrastructure in place to immediately provide services) to allow FEMA to have the least impact on behavioral health services.

Upon notification that FOH would not continue support for behavioral health services to the

FEMA workforce, FEMA has been working diligently on a competitive action for a new contract. Throughout the process of drafting the procurement package for the new competitive action there were many unknown factors that FEMA/OCAO/ESH were not aware of due to FOH having majority control of these services for many years. Since this is the first time FEMA is executing this requirement, there were many lessons learned and many changes that occurred throughout the process. One major hurdle was the requirement for a vendor to maintain a database to obtain Personally Identifiable Information (PII) which required additional documentation and approvals through the Office of the Chief Information

Officer (OCIO) such as a Security Plan and an Assessment Plan in order to receive an

Authority to Operate (ATO) for their database system. Typically, this process can take months to a year for completion.

Additionally, this requirement will be combined with another requirement for medical services as it is necessary for a single vendor to perform the BHS services in conjunction with the medical services for the longer-term requirement. FEMA requires a single vendor to ensure there is one point of accountability for all medical and behavioral services and personnel at all FEMA site locations and to prevent potential difficulties with the lack of coordination points between vendors. These services are closely integrated providing medical and behavioral well-being to all employees to successfully complete FEMA’s mission. The medical services portion of the combined contract requirement required a last-minute scope change by the OCAO, in response to the ongoing global pandemic, management requiring the addition of COVID-19 testing and vaccinations thereby increasing the total dollar value of the re-compete action over the $25 million threshold leading to the need for a Procurement

Strategy Review (PSR). This process can take anywhere from 60 to 90 business days. As a result of these unforeseen changes during the pre-award procurement process, this has delayed in the solicitation of the competitive action.

8. A statement of actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to restricted consideration (i.e., limited sources) before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made. Include a statement of actions taken or that will be taken to increase competition for future acquisitions of the same item/service (e.g., the government intends to revise overly restrictive technical specifications, acquire data rights, or pursue some other means to increase future competition).

Barriers that prevent this urgent and compelling contract from being competed in normal fashion include the transition period for an outside vendor to establish the infrastructure, as mentioned previously, to handle a contract of this magnitude servicing locations within the

Continental United States and locations Outside the Continental United States. Magellan

Federal has pre-established relationships with behavioral health providers in every location that FEMA operates. They have been providing these services through FOH for nearly 20 years. Any other vendor, who would attempt to establish these same types of relationships would require a time frame extending out beyond the period of performance in this BPA request as well as substantially beyond the IAA currently in place with FOH to suspend remaining services no later than 31 January 2021. Establishing a program, from scratch will be cost prohibitive because FEMA is competing the full requirement and has the potential to increase the costs of this program beyond what could be identified during the market research phase of this acquisition effort.

In addition to the costs outlined in the above paragraph, the long-term contract avenue which is also being worked simultaneously with this approach, identifies the requirements for a transition period and the establishment of required services. Because of the projected period of performance for this contracting effort, FEMA does not anticipate the transition time of the full competed requirement to be prohibitive because this interim BPA will still be in place to cover that time.

The Behavioral Health Services requirement will be re-competed with an estimated award date of June 2021. The solicitation for the re-compete will be publicized on the

Governmentwide Point of Entry (www.beta.sam.gov) and will be based upon full and open competition which will ensure offers will be solicited from as many potential sources as possible. DHS/FEMA/OCPO seeks approval of this Limited Sources Justification in order to award a bridge BPA for Behavioral Health Services to prevent a lapse in services while the full contract is competed.

9. DHS intends to post this requirement on beta.SAM.gov pursuant to FAR 8.405-

6(a)(2)(i).

10. Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification.

Pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(x), I certify that this requirement meets the Government’s minimum need and that the supporting data, which form a basis for the Limited-Sources

Justification, are accurate and complete.

Technical Representative/COR Date

11. Contracting Officer Certification and/or Approval *

Pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(ix), I certify that the Limited-Sources Justification is accurate http://www.beta.sam.gov/ and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief:

Contracting Officer Date

12. Approval

Component Competition Advocate Date