JA- 36C10B24C0041-Health Enrollment follow on- Final_Redacted.pdf

CONTROL NUMBER VA-24-00010129

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 contract action is for the management and ongoing incremental improvements of the suite of 10-10 Healthcare Application forms on VA.gov. The proposed contractor is Agile Six Applications, Inc. (Agile Six), 12830 Vineyard Crest Pl, Lakeside, CA 92040.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The proposed action is to provide all engineering, user experience (UX) design, user research, product management, and project management activities necessary for the day-to-day management and further development of the suite of 10-10 forms. This also includes hours monitoring, incident response, and tier 3 customer support. The contractor will also continue work that is underway, including the ability to register for VA healthcare rather than enrolling in VA healthcare and completing the remaining parts of the 10-10EZR form.

Additionally, the contractor will continue the integrations with backend systems, update and add user-facing form fields, utilize existing and develop new instrumentation to ensure availability and performance, track and synthesize qualitative and quantitative customer experience data, and collaborate with business and technical stakeholders to achieve the product vision. This proposed FFP contract is for a 12-month base period. The total estimated value of the proposed action is

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. Agile Six is a certified SDVOSB and is technically qualified to support the suite of 10-10 forms. Agile Six won a competitive task order in February 2023 to perform this work and has performed successfully to date. The existing task order expires on August 31, 2024, however, the need for continued support and incremental improvements on the forms is ongoing beyond this task order. Without ongoing support, the team will not be able to maintain, monitor, and iterate on the current forms. Any revisions made to the forms would not be updated on VA.gov, resulting in Veterans submitting outdated forms. Additionally, staff would not be available to monitor forms and form submissions, which would result in downtime or

Health Enrollment Follow-on CONTROL NUMBER: VA-24-00010129 forms being submitted in error and not received by back-end system. Ultimately, this would result in Veterans not receiving benefits, a delay in receiving benefits, and/or a poor user experience.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted in May 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 management and iteration of the 10-10 forms on VA.gov 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 management and iteration of the suite of 10-10 forms on VA.gov is 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 May 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. Such a disruption would severely impact VA’s ability to support the digitized suite of 10-10 forms on VA.gov, which allow Veterans to apply for important health benefits, such as applying for VA healthcare. 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 June 27, 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 June 27, 2024 that Agile Six is registered in the SAM.gov database and is eligible to receive a Government contract.

Additionally, the Contracting Officer reviewed all 28 of Agile Six’s performance ratings in the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS).

Agile Six had no rating lower than “satisfactory” for all rating categories, with 18 of 28 being rated “exceptional” under the Quality category, demonstrating it is a responsible contractor with respect to performance.

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.

Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition for the management and ongoing incremental improvements of the suite of 10-10 Healthcare Application forms on VA.gov. 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.

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