JA_Exemption_MARx_Testing_fully-executed_081519.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

Acquisition Title: Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D System Maintenance Agency: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Acquisition Year: 2019 Author: Tracey Baker, Contracting Officers’ Representative

1. Description of Action:

A. Nature

a. ____ New Requirement

b. ____ Follow-On Order

c. X Modification of Existing Purchase Order / Contract Number #HHSM-500-2007-

00015I / HHSM-500-T0016

B. Order Against

a. __X__Multiple Award IDIQ Contract Number

C. Contract Type

a. ____ Firm-Fixed Price

b. ____ Time and Materials

c. ____ Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF)

i. ____ Term

ii. ____ Completion

d. X Cost Plus Award Fee (CPAF)

e. ____ Other: ___________

D. Projected Cost / Price of contract (Base & All Options): $75,074,402 E. The total estimated value of the proposed sole source action (for modifications only): $442,245 F. Funding Source (s): 002932

G. ____: Basis for Approval (Far 6.303-1(d)

X : Individual Basis ____: Class Basis

2. Description of Supplies or Services:

CMS procured the services of the Medicare Enrollment and Payment Systems (MEPS) contractor under contract # GS-06F-0596Z / HHSM-500-2014-00405G on August 1, 2014. The MEPS contractor performs coordination and oversight of integration testing, testing support involving other federal agencies that interface with CMS, and volume regression testing of software and system components developed or modified to support the Medicare Enrollment and Payment Systems, including the Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug Benefit (MARx) subsystem, the User Interface (UI), the Premium Withhold Subsystem (PWS), the Medicare Beneficiary Database (MBD) Subsystem, the Medicare Enrollment and premium Billing System/Enrollment Database (MEPBS/EDB), the Drug Data Processing Subsystem (DDPS), the Payment Reconciliation Subsystem (PRS) and the Risk Adjustment Subsystem (RAS). The period of performance is 8/1/2014 – 7/31/2019, with a transition-out period of 8/1/2019 – 1/31/2020.

The Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D System Maintenance (MAPD Maintenance) contract was awarded under contract # HHSM-500-2007-00015I / HHSM-500-T0016 with a period of performance of 8/1/2014 – 7/31/2021. The MAPD Maintenance contractor provides the operations and maintenance services for a subset of the MA & Part D system to include the Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug Benefit (MARx),the MARx User Interface (UI) and the Premium Withhold Subsystem (PWS). The maintenance and enhancement activities include, but are not limited to systems analysis, design, database maintenance support, programming, unit, system/string, and regression testing, data analysis, system documentation, special projects, integration between the MA & Part D subsystems, quality assurance, and general support of CMS systems activities. The MAPD Maintenance contractor also supports the MEPS contractor throughout the testing phase.

Given that the MAPD Maintenance contractor is currently working with the MEPS contractor to support the testing efforts, this action seeks to procure the additional MARx testing services under the MAPD Maintenance contract.

The APP number for these services is 192162.

3. Authority and Rationale:

The Contracting Officer shall give every awardee a fair opportunity to be considered for a delivery/task order exceeding $3,000 unless one of the following statutory exceptions applies. FAR 16.505(b)(2). Mark the applicable exception:

X The agency need for the supplies or services is so urgent that providing a fair opportunity would result in unacceptable delays [FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(A)];

Due to the MEPS contract ended on July 31, 2019 and the MARx testing services are no longer being supported, it would be impossible to implement a procurement process to solicit and evaluate proposals and on-board a new contractor before the lapse in services would reach a critical state. The current MAPD Maintenance task order for the full body of work took approximately six (6) months to compete from issuance of the solicitation to the award of the task order. Consistent with our

Procurement Administrative Lead Time (PALT) standards that are based on the contracting method and estimated dollar value, it would take at least four (4) months to compete a new task order for these MARx testing services. Assuming that a contractor other than the MEPS or MAPD contractors would win the award, at least an additional three (3) months would be required to transition the work to a new contractor.

The MAPD Maintenance contractor has the knowledge and experience to perform all of the MARx testing functions and seamlessly transition to leading the testing implementation. Additionally, the MAPD Maintenance contractor will be able to expand the integration effort to include other systems with which MARx interfaces, which would include additional notification to other systems and testing of modified files. As described below, the MAPD Maintenance team is currently performing limited portions of the testing work and is ready to easily transition to leading the work.

1. Cleanup Validation – The MAPD contractor currently resolves all Remedy Trouble Tickets and coordinates with the MEPS contractor and other CMS help desks when the software fix is implemented as a component of a normally scheduled (“on cycle”) system software release or a patch release. The MAPD contractor also creates a Data Fix Document (DFD) for a Remedy ticket that requires a fix to the MARx, PWS, and UI. The new work will now require the contractor to be responsible for the MARx cleanup validations, which will be an independent activity that provides evidence of anomalies to development team for correction/concurrence prior to CMS approval for Production implementation.

2. Integration Testing – The MAPD contractor currently supports the identification and development of test documents and execution of MARx changes impacting other systems. The contractor currently assists by correcting errors encountered during the validation of code migrations and shakeout in I1/I0.The new work will require the contractor to perform the identification and development of test documents and execute MARx changes impacting other systems. The new work will require the contractor to perform validation of code migrations and execute shakeout in I1/I0 and continue to correct errors encountered.

3. Volume Regression Testing (VRT) – The MAPD contractor is currently a participant in the MEPS VRT coordination process and assists by correcting errors encountered. The new work will require the contractor to execute MARx VRT testing in accordance with MEPS VRT processes and coordinate with other MEPS Partners and continue to correct errors, as well as performing the coordination activities on a rotational basis. This activity includes validating code migrations, executing shakeout, and defect reporting in V0/V1. The MAPD contractor will rotate the coordination responsibility of planning and status reporting VRT. This includes gathering and delivering Lessons Learned to CMS after VRT.

4. Year End/New Year Prep (NYP) Testing – The MAPD contractor currently assists in the execution and validation of the MARx Year-End process by correcting errors encountered and participating in coordination activities. The new work will require the MAPD contractor to perform MARx Year End/New Year Prep (NYP) testing, execution, and coordination activities. The MEPS contractor currently takes a lead role in the NYP effort and performs testing of payment and premium extensions. As the maintainer of the MARx system, the MAPD Maintenance contractor understands the impacts of changes to NYP processes by all Change Requests and Cases (e.g., system remedies, Helpdesk tickets, etc.) that were introduced to the system after the last NYP process.

5. Environment Coordination – The contractor currently assists in validation of test region (I1/I0/V1/V0) by correcting errors encountered. The new work will require the contractor to execute and validate the test regions (I1/I0/V1/V0) after data refresh completion for MARx. This includes identifying data inconsistencies and coordinating with all relevant partners to correct prior to beginning testing.

If this justification is not approved, the government faces serious harm and injury in completing the work on the MARx system. The work identified in this justification is significant in test operations for the Medicare Enrollment and Payment Systems (MEPS) program and without having a qualified contractor to perform these testing services, CMS could suffer severe delays impacting the ability to test effectively. This could lead to the introduction of errors in the payment and enrollment systems, ultimately adversely impacting beneficiaries.

The new work identified in this modification has been removed from the MEPS contract as of August 1, 2019 with the intent to move the MARx testing to the MAPD Maintenance contract by August 16, 2019.

__Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services are unique or highly specialized [FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(B)];

____ The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order [FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C)]; or

___ It is necessary to place the order to satisfy a minimum guarantee [FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(D)].

____ A statute expressly authorizes or requires that the purchase be made from a specified source. [FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(E)].

4. Provide a statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the exception to fair opportunity before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made:

In the future, there will not be a need for an exception to fair opportunity for the testing services. In the future, CMS plans to compete the MARx Testing in a timely manner and in accordance with acquisition guidelines.

5. State any other facts supporting the justification:

N/A

Approvals:

Program Office Certification. This is to certify that portions of this justification have been developed by the undersigned program office personnel, including supporting information and/or data verifying the Government’s minimum needs, schedule requirements and other rationale for Exceptions to Fair Opportunity, which form the basis for this justification.

Contracting Officer Representative (COR) / Date

Mark Matthews Program/Project Manager (P/PM) / Date

Best Value Determination. By my signature below, after review of the relevant documents, I have determined that the order subject to this Justification represents the best value for the Government as set forth in FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(B)(5), and constitutes a fair and reasonable price. The basis for my determination is as follows:

The Contracting Officer will perform cost realism analysis on the Contractor's proposed costs to ensure they are fair and reasonable; realistic for the services required; and reflect that the contractor understands the complexity of the requirement. The Contracting Officer’s analysis will verify that; the proposed labor costs; the proposed labor categories and hours; the indirect costs; other direct costs, and fee are realistic and overall reflect the contractor’s comprehension of the requirement. The Contracting Officer will compare the proposed costs for the Hub Development services against the pricing in existing Federal contracts.

Contracting Officer Certification: This is to certify that the justification for the proposed acquisition has been reviewed and that to the best of my knowledge and belief, the information and/or data provided to support the rationale and recommendation for approval, is accurate and complete.

Contracting Officer / Date

Additional OAGM Approvals:

I hereby confirm the circumstances described above apply and approve the justification for Exceptions to Fair Opportunity.

__________________N/A______________________________ OAGM Division Director / Date

_________________N/A_______________________________ OAGM Group Director / Date

Head of Contracting Authority (HCA) Approval:

I hereby confirm that the circumstances described above apply and approve this Justification for Exception(s) to Fair Opportunity.

_________________N/A_______________________________ HCA Name / Date

Competition Advocate Approval

I hereby confirm that the circumstances described above apply and approve this Justification for Exception(s) to Fair Opportunity.

__________________N/A_______________________________ Name / Date

Senior Procurement Executive (SPE) Approval

I hereby confirm the circumstances described above apply and approve the Justification for Exceptions to Fair Opportunity.

______________________N/A___________________________ SPE Name / Date