JA ABD TE_FINAL_Signed-JB-S.pdf

CONTROL NUMBER VA-24-00084590

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics

Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed firm-fixed price (FFP) sole source action is for digital product delivery support to provide infrastructure for teams developing automated benefits delivery applications to improve the Veteran disability benefits experience and to make digital (VA.gov) claims more efficient to adjudicate. The proposed contractor is Agile Six Applications, Inc. (Agile Six) 12830 Vineyard Crest Pl, Lakeside, CA 92040.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: To meet the increased demands brought on by “Toxic Exposure” legislation, VA must grow and evolve the platform infrastructure needed to support the product development teams working on tools that help VA ensure that VA.gov claims are easy for Veterans to complete and more efficient for claims processing. Currently this infrastructure is referred to as the Automated Benefits Delivery – Virtual Reginal Office (ABD-VRO) platform.

The proposed action allows the Contractor to continue to support and develop the ABD-VRO platform, which provides a software development environment for Benefits Portfolio teams to quickly integrate with existing VA services and deploy to VA's Lighthouse Delivery Infrastructure (LHDI) platform. The platform enables Benefits Portfolio teams to have the data, systems access, authority, and infrastructure needed to quickly and effectively develop and test new product hypotheses, and is currently supporting pilots for automated contention classification, maximum rating education on claims for increase, and auto-merging of duplicate claims.

In addition, the proposed action will allow the contractor’s Employee Experience team to continue work to make VA.gov-submitted claims more complete, accurate, and actionable. This includes tasks such as automatically applying relevant flashes and special issues, improving the formatting and packaging of the data from the online form, and extending automations such as the EP merge project to more claims. The goal of this work is to remove unnecessary manual actions taken by VA claims processors during the development of the claim and give Veterans more confidence that they are submitting their best claim. This proposed FFP contract is for a 12-month base period. The total estimated value of the proposed action is $4,805,328.00.

This contract is a continuation of a CEDAR task order, building the same products (Virtual Regional Office platform and Employee Experience) that are under the existing ABD Toxic Exposure task order.

Automated Benefits Delivery – Toxic Exposure Control Number: VA-24-00084590

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition for this acquisition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(5), “Authorized or Required by Statute”, as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-5. For this action, 38 U.S.C. 8127(c), known as the Veterans First Contracting Program provides the authority to directly contract with a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) or a Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB).

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source for this acquisition is Agile Six, Inc. Agile Six is a certified SDVOSB and is technically qualified to provide the digital product delivery support to improve the Veteran experience of managing their disability benefits on VA.gov. Agile Six was awarded a competitive task order on September 7, 2023 to perform this work and has performed successfully to date.

The existing task order expires on September 9, 2024, however, the need for continued support to run, monitor, and enhance systems goes beyond this task order. A break in service for the current contract would end active monitoring for two ongoing releases (Maximum Claims for Increase education notice pilot and EP400 Merge pilot for multi-contention claims), and end ongoing research into improving the quality of veteran submissions by integrating va.gov systems with downstream services to validate the completeness and ease of review for claims submission (VRO). These updates will improve the experience for Veterans applying for disability benefits on VA.gov, and the burden of evaluating those applications by VA staff, is an ongoing need beyond this task order. Any break in service for the current contract would delay needed improvements to VA.gov, slowing the processes for applying for and receiving earned benefits. Additionally, any break in service would significantly risk increasing the appeals rate for claims submitted on VA.gov, reducing decision accuracy for claims submitted on VA.gov, increasing the time or effort it takes for Veterans to submit claims, increasing the time or effort it takes to process claims and for teams using the VRO platform to validate ideas for improvement.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted in July 2024, as discussed in Section 8. Upon the determination that a sole source award to Agile Six was in the best interest of the Government, the Contracting Officer confirmed that Agile Six meets all of the requirements detailed in VAAR 819.7008. Consistent with the guidelines of the Veterans First Contracting Program, the proposed action described herein will be synopsized and this justification will be posted on the Contracting Opportunities Page in accordance with FAR Part 5.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The current task order was competed and awarded on the Customer Experience, DevOps, Agile Releases (CEDAR) Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. The contract ceiling of CEDAR is accounted for, and therefore the continued requirements cannot be obtained via the CEDAR IDIQ. A new IDIQ, the Secure, Performant, Reliable, and User-Centered Experiences (SPRUCE) contract is planned to replace CEDAR and is currently in the evaluation phase. Continued support for improvements to the disability benefits claim experience and VA employee experience with processing those claims are ongoing and needed to bridge the gap between the CEDAR and SPRUCE contracts.

It is expected that future needs for this work will be competed on the new IDIQ contract in fiscal year 2025. CEDAR (and SPRUCE, once awarded), are the preferred vehicles to acquire the type of software development services under this action as they are 100% set asides for SDVOSBs and the awardees have proven software development capability.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted in July 2024. The Contracting Officer considered whether there are other capable contractors in the marketplace.

Given that the CEDAR contract is nearing its ceiling and is no longer a viable vehicle for this work, and the follow-on IDIQ contract, SPRUCE, is not yet awarded, it is not in the Government’s best interest to compete for a short-term bridge effort as it may result in a transition to a different contractor, and then a transition to a third contractor once SPRUCE is awarded. The potential for three different contractors to have to transition this work in roughly 12 months would likely result in disruptions to the services being performed. This is because the teams would face a steep learning curve in taking over the full backlog of current work, require access to all necessary VA systems, and there is no way this could be accomplished without a significant reduction in velocity while the new contractor transitioned in and the current contractor transitions out. Such a disruption would severely impact VA’s ability to receive earned disability benefits and increase the time it takes for VA to processes those claims. Therefore, it is in VA’s best interest to award this action to the contractor currently performing the work, Agile Six, with the planned follow-on action to be competed under SPRUCE.

The Veteran Small Business Certification (VetCert) database was accessed on July 2024. This search concluded that Agile Six is registered and certified and qualifies as a SDVOSB in accordance with the federal small business size standard for the applicable North American Industry Classification System Code 541519. It was verified on July 2024 that Agile Six is registered in the SAM.gov database and is eligible to receive a Government contract.

9. Other Facts: The Procuring Contracting Officer has determined that this proposed action meets all the requirements of 38 U.S.C. 8127(c) and VAAR 819.7008. This acquisition is below the $5,000,000.00 threshold, Agile Six is a responsible SDVOSB for performance of the services described herein, the proposed contract can be awarded at a fair and reasonable price, and award to Agile Six is in the best interest of the Government.

10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Steve Albers Date: _____________________

Digital Services Expert Signature: _______________________

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable. Price analysis shall be conducted by comparing the successful quote to the Independent Government Cost Estimate and Comparison of the proposed prices to historical prices paid, whether by the Government or other than the Government, for the same or similar items.

Joseph Jones Date: ________________________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Joseph Jones Date: ________________________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________

Advocate for Competition Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of the ABD Toxic Exposure solution on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

Jason Bullen Date

Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Department of Veterans Affairs