RFP Attachment J-3 Statement of Work.docx

RFP-CMS-2010-8A-0004

RFP Attachment J-3 Amendment 000002 (Attachment 1)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Beneficiary Network Services (BNS) Help Desk Statement of Work

Independently, and not as an agent of the Government, the contractor shall furnish the necessary services, personnel, materials, equipment, and facilities, not otherwise provided by the Government, as needed to perform this Contract.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has unlimited rights to all data, licenses, source code and programs, and system architecture developed by the contractor. “Unlimited rights” shall be passed to CMS, its successors and assignees in accordance with FAR reference 52.227-14 Rights in data-general and 52.227-17 Rights in data – Special Works.

1.0 Introduction

This Contract provides the requirements necessary to operate the BNS Help Desk.

Background

CMS serves the informational needs of more than 40 million Medicare beneficiaries. These beneficiaries make over 30 million toll-free calls each year to a nationwide distributed network of CMS contracted Beneficiary Contact Centers (BCC). The beneficiary calls are delivered via the 1-800-MEDICARE and associated TTY toll free numbers. These beneficiary calls range from general inquiries to help with planning future beneficiary needs, and specific questions concerning Medicare claims.

Annually, CMS experiences a “peak” beneficiary inquiry volume from October through the mid-January time frame. This peak period is driven by high call volumes due to mass mailing of the Medicare & You handbook, annual beneficiary enrollment in prescription drug plans, managed care non-renewal notices, managed care Fall enrollment period, and information sent by the Social Security Administration (SSA) each December concerning cost of living adjustments and Medicare premiums for the next calendar year. CMS may also experience peak periods at other times in the year, based on changes in Medicare policy, legislation, media activities, etc. The complexity and various factors of the Medicare & Medicaid programs drive many of the inquiries to the BCC environment.

Voice Services

To assist CMS in managing the voice services in the BCC(s), a Help Desk is required. The Help Desk undertakes monitoring, reporting, operating and analysis of the voice services used by the BCC(s). These voice services are currently acquired by CMS through the General Services Administration (GSA) via the Networx contract. The voice services include Network Voice Circuits, Enhanced Call Routing, Speech-enabled Interactive Voice Response (SIVR) network, Intelligent Call Routing (ICR), Toll Free Network Manager, Web Center Solutions and Custom Call Reporting (CCR), as well as any additional voice services, which CMS may purchase in the future. The Contractor shall understand the voice services under this contract and any successor voice services contracts supporting the BCC(s).

The Contractor shall be responsible for the allocation of incoming toll-free calls to the various contact center locations within the BCC network. The BNS shall also support routing changes during holidays, planned closures and emergency closures, except for CMS specified holiday closures of the BNS Help Desk. This support includes managing complex routing schemes between contact centers using ICR and modifications to entry point logic to redirect calls from the SIVR.

The Contractor shall provide real-time monitoring of the various voice services supporting the BCC(s) and shall reroute calls on an as needed basis. The Contractor shall also be required to track and report any voice service troubles impacting service to the BCC(s). The BNS shall establish a close relationship with CMS’ voice services contractor(s) and any related subcontractors in order to corroboratively resolve voice network problems, make routing changes, etc.

Due to the sensitive nature of the needs of the Medicare beneficiaries and the requirement for high levels of service, the importance of non-interrupted voice network services is critical.

VCS Environment

In 2002, CMS established the Virtual Call Center Strategy (VCS) to create a virtual, enterprise-wide, contact center environment that maximizes the use of technologies, resources, and service effectiveness across sites and contractors.

The VCS calls for the delivery of premier customer service through a technologically advanced and integrated customer service platform. The platform integrates multiple contractor sites, systems, applications and data sources via a secure data and voice network (See Attachment 1). There are several essential systems currently being implemented that are critical to the VCS goals:

a. Next Generation Desktop (NGD), the cornerstone of the VCS strategy, the desktop application for all Medicare Customer Service Representatives (CSRs). NGD is a Siebel thin client, browser-based application that is designed to provide a single point of customer service contact for the Medicare beneficiary. It is designed to handle all current and future types of Medicare inquiries and eliminates the need for Medicare call centers to utilize and maintain various desktop applications. The NGD Disaster Recovery Site provides redundant infrastructure for NGD and MyMedicare.gov portal should the Production site become unavailable. Any references to NGD or MyMedicare.gov portal within this Statement of Work are made with the assumption that BNS Help Desk requirements apply equally to either infrastructure. (See Attachment 2 for additional detail)

b. Speech Recognition Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, a voice activated National IVR system. The Speech IVR is a key element of the National IVR platform and is critical to the functionality of the national Single 800 Number (1-800-MEDICARE). The Speech IVR is used to provide services in the IVR and to accurately route beneficiaries to the next available CSR that can best meet their needs. The Speech IVR allows callers to navigate via spoken phrases rather than touch-tones. Callers have options for self-service (claims, deductibles, drug plans) through an interface with NGD. Callers are given an opportunity to speak to a live agent.

c. Self-Service IVR (SIVR), an enhancement to the IVR platform that is integrated with the NGD to automatically access the CMS systems necessary to answer caller inquiries without the need to transfer to a CSR. Initial use of the Self-Service IVR transactions focuses on providing information on beneficiary eligibility, claim status, enrollment status, and other services. Centralization of IVR transactions provides for application uniformity and also results in full compliance with Privacy Act authentication requirements.

d. Genesys Intelligent Call Routing (ICR), a network application that allows each call to be sent to the next available agent regardless of which contact center the CSR is located in. ICR enables the management of independent contact centers as a single virtual center increasing the overall efficiency of BCC operations. MCS-Genesys ICR is a network based product that uses a Universal Routing engine to distribute calls automatically. A specific feature of the MCS-Genesys ICR product is its ability to provide virtual call queues, holding queued calls at the network rather than at multiple premise switches and allowing multiple contact centers to operate more efficiently by distributing calls from a single queue rather than multiple site based queues.

e. Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), reduces the length of time it takes for a CSR to complete a call. CTI takes the caller-provided information (collected through automation in the IVR) and passes it through to the CSR’s desktop, the caller-provided information is passed on when a call is transferred CSR to CSR, so that when the call is answered, the caller’s information is already displayed to the CSR. This reduces the CSR workload and agent error associated with the manual entry of data into the system.

f. MyMedicare.gov (Medicare Beneficiary Portal), enables beneficiaries to access their health insurance information (claim status, eligibility information, deductible status, managed care enrollment information and Medicare Summary Notice [MSN] ordering) through a secure Internet connection available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. MyMedicare.gov accesses this information through the NGD infrastructure to further improve operational efficiency and expand the channels used to provide information to Medicare constituents. The goals of the MyMedicare.gov are to reduce the average cost per inquiry by answering questions via self-serve Internet access, while increasing customer service.(See Attachment 3)

g. National Data Warehouse (NDW), is the central repository for capturing, aggregating, and analyzing information related to the beneficiary experience with Medicare. The NDW serves as a foundation for operational and management reporting to support the improvement of decision making, business practices, and services to callers. The data stored in the NDW is used to monitor, forecast, trend, analyze and report on the performance of all contact channels available to the beneficiaries. (See Attachment 6)

h. Learning Management System (LMS, is the central repository for organizing and structuring Medicare Training Material. The system is used at the Beneficiary Contact Centers and by other CMS designated users. The LMS is the entry point to access the Medicare Knowledge Training Repository (MTKR). (See Attachment 4)

i. Medicare Knowledge Training Repository (MTKR), is the system that contains both current and historical Medicare training materials and that is accessed through the LMS. Items housed within the CMS training system include but are not limited to such items as: instructor guides, participant guides, job aids, proficiency tests, test call scenarios, and other reference materials for customer service representatives, quality analysts, supervisors, and CMS approved users. Training includes customer service skills, training in the use of various web tools, training in the use of the NGD desktop to include the development of training for any new NGD releases, and all training necessary for CSRs and other NGD users to effectively respond to and resolve beneficiary inquiries. (See Attachment 4)

j. Stellent is a software product with which all content developed and housed within the LMS systems are managed. Through Stellent CMS is able to easily deploy multiple lines-of-business applications -- such as public Web sites, secure intranets and extranets, compliance processes, and marketing brand management -- and also scale the technology to support multi-site management and enterprise-wide content management needs.(See Attachment 5)

The above description of integrated systems currently managed under the VCS illustrates the complexity of the current customer service platform. Additional customer service contact channels such as web chat and email may be added at CMS’ discretion in the future. By integrating all beneficiary contact channels with the NGD desktop, CMS is creating a complete and consistent view of the beneficiary and their experience with Medicare. This complete view will allow CMS to better understand its beneficiaries and continuously improve customer service.

Objectives

This statement of work (SOW) provides the basis for the development, implementation, and operation of a help desk support function capability responsible for overseeing and managing the resolutions of end-user requests for support as they relate to voice services provided though the VCS systems. The BNS Help Desk will be the central, integrated help desk supporting all BCCs and Virtual Call Center systems and will be responsible for managing the entire lifecycle of help desk requests for support.

In addition, the help desk will be responsible for performing NGD Local System Administrator (LSA) functions for non-BCC system users (including CMS Central Office and Regional employees, Medicare Administrative Contractor[MACs],BCC LSA’s, etc). The BNS Help Desk will provide CMS with a single consolidated view of all VCS voice and system related requests for support, system support, and a comprehensive view of voice and system reported issues and service requests from identification through disposition.

The BNS Help Desk will provide an effective and efficient single source of Help Desk related reports, complete with analysis of voice and system issues and trends. Help Desk reports shall analyze, trend, and report on the performance of VCS systems across new system releases, system upgrades and maintenance, business continuity and disaster recovery procedures, and software and hardware upgrades and patches. The BNS Help Desk will enable CMS to make informed decisions to improve the health of its systems (including voice services) and to make necessary revisions to its IT and customer service business practices to ensure uninterrupted service to Beneficiaries.

2.0 Scope

The contractor shall incorporate best practices such as those defined in the industry IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) IT Service Management methodologies to manage the full range of BNS Help Desk support services and the infrastructure necessary to implement CMS BNS Help Desk objectives. To ensure that the government’s technical services are developed and maintained using industry best practices and mature processes, the contractor shall be assessed at Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Certified Level 3 using Staged Representation prior to award. The contractor shall have a thorough understanding of the VCS voice services and systems for which they shall provide support. This understanding shall include knowledge of the architecture, infrastructure, network, integration, limitations, and operations/use of each of the VCS systems.

The contractor shall ensure BNS Help Desk personnel are capable of correctly identifying support issues, documenting them within the ticket tracking application, managing escalation or assignment procedures, communicating clearly to the customer, and maintaining accountability of the problem throughout the life of the issue from identification through disposition. The contractor shall provide periodic reports and ensure all system data and personnel are available for quality assurance auditing. The contractor shall furnish all Help Desk facilities, labor, materials, and transportation necessary to perform the task requirements, as well as provide the resources required to meet changes in the VCS environment.

The Contractor shall establish a voice service monitoring center to oversee voice network problem resolution and routing management of the BCC voice network. The Contractor shall supply skilled personnel to monitor and route incoming calls and to evaluate, analyze and report on Medicare beneficiary call activity.

3.0 BNS Help Desk Operations

The contractor shall provide Help Desk support for all VCS voice services and systems. The Help Desk shall provide troubleshooting support, user support, technical support, issue triage, escalation, and end-to-end trouble management during the defined hours of operation. The contractor shall operate under common processes and standard operating procedures and shall ensure delivery against all defined service level agreements. (Sample SOPs are attached)

The contractor shall establish Help Desk functionality which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year, except for CMS specified holiday closures. The BNS Help Desk shall be fully staffed by properly trained personnel from the hours of 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM Monday thru Friday and during emergency events as deemed necessary by CMS. Outside of these designated hours, the Help Desk shall operate remotely with the same access to tools available at the main Help Desk location. The time-based and performance-based service level agreements (SLA) reflected in the below table are applicable at all times regardless of the location of Help Desk operation.

The contractor shall close on the following holidays: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. In order to align with the BCC Contact Center’s operational hours for closure on these holidays, the contractor shall close from 3:00 AM on the day of the holiday and reopen at 2:59 AM Eastern Time (ET) the day following the holiday(closure and reopening times may be modified based on daylight savings time). For example, the Help Desk would close on December 25th at 3:00 AM ET and reopen at 2:59 AM ET on December 26th.

The Help Desk shall close on the actual day of the holiday. For example, if Independence Day falls on a Saturday, the Help Desk shall close on Saturday, July 4th.

CMS reserves the right to direct the contractor to remain open on any of the specified holidays.

Throughout all hours of operation the Help Desk shall be fully operational and possess the ability to accept, track, escalate, and resolve Help Desk tickets. During all hours of operation the Help Desk shall handle requests via phone, email, and fax. All phone requests for support shall be routed through a central, CMS-supplied toll-free phone number. During remote support the toll-free number shall be forwarded so that the appropriate Help Desk staff is able to receive requests for support.

The contractor shall coordinate with CMS and CMS designated vendors to install and maintain various Help Desk voice and system diagnostic tools including Aspect, Verizon Enterprise Center, CCPulse, BAC, What’s Up Gold (WUG), ASM, and Sysmon. The contractor Help Desk staff shall have an in-depth knowledge of these networking monitoring tools and during the hours of operation shall be responsible for monitoring these tools for network issues.

During Help Desk hours of 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM Monday through Friday, the contractor shall rotate the display of each of the above monitoring tools. During all hours of the operation, Help Desk staff shall be available that is knowledgeable and trained on these monitoring tools and SOPs for each. At all times throughout the operation, Help Desk staff shall keep a constant view of the voice and network monitoring tools. During all hours of the operation, all Help Desk staff shall understand the urgency of identifying potential system and voice issues via these tools as well as the importance of conveying the issues to the appropriate stakeholders within 15 minutes of viewing the issue. Using these monitoring tools, Help Desk staff shall generate and escalate incidents when necessary.

During remote operations (Monday through Friday 10:01 PM to 6:59 AM and Friday 10:01 PM to Monday 6:59 AM) Help Desk staff shall display and monitor WUG and CCPULSE on a remote terminal.

All email requests for support shall be submitted through a designated email address. The contractor shall implement and maintain a single domain name (i.e., @helpdesk.com) for email correspondence. For business continuity purposes, the contractor shall have a primary and secondary email server with the secondary server taking up functionality when the primary is offline and the primary taking back functionality when back online. The contractor shall have access to historical email logs.

The contractor shall send end user notices to various stakeholders regarding planned or unplanned system or voice outages. The functionality to send these notices shall be integrated with the contractor’s email account to enable automated email notices via the contractor’s trouble ticketing system (Remedy is the mandatory trouble ticketing application). The contractor shall generate and maintain multiple stakeholder email distribution lists that shall reside on the contractor’s local server.

The contractor shall provide audio conferencing capabilities in order to instantly respond and react to high impact severity incidents as well as facilitation of communication and coordination among the appropriate stakeholder community of contact centers and system developers/maintainers when a voice or network system/application release occurs. The audio conferencing service shall be available for use by the Help Desk and for stakeholders up to 150 participants at one time. The contractor shall assume a total of 5,000 minutes a month. The conference call bridge shall be toll-free or toll-free accessible.

Time-based and performance-based service level agreements (SLAs) shall be utilized to set expectations for the Help Desk customers and the contractor. These metrics shall be measured monthly. The contractor shall apply the following SLAs to their services:

Remedy

The contractor shall accommodate any potential surge in demand for their Help Desk services to provide consistent user support and to prevent any impact to Help Desk service. The contractor shall maintain a staffed conference call bridge with sufficient ports to provide post-release support for 3 calendar days following a VCS system release. The contractor shall provide a Post-Release Implementation Support Plan defining their approach for supporting VCS system releases, and provide a Post-Release Implementation Inquiry Report within 7 calendar days following each VCS system release detailing the requests for support and enhancement requests received relating to the deployed system. The contractor shall assume four NGD system releases annually and one system release annually for all other systems.

The contractor shall implement the processes and procedures as defined in the BNS Help Desk Incident Classification and Escalation Guidelines document (Attached). These guidelines define the service types, levels of severity for trouble tickets, the procedures and criteria for assigning severity levels to newly created tickets, the escalation procedures associated with severity of ticket, strict notification processes, and the target response and resolution times for each level.

4.0 BNS Help Desk Staffing

The contractor shall ensure a comprehensive Training Plan is implemented for Help Desk staff. Help Desk staff shall maintain current knowledge of operations of the VCS systems via education, training, and in the case of the NGD, obtain Local Siebel Administration certification via a week-long class provided by CMS. Staff shall maintain an understanding of current processes, policies, and procedures, including issue escalation, issue requester notification, tracking, disposition, and reporting.

The contractor shall identify core competencies and adapt their training plan to evaluate and remediate staff’s knowledge of these core competencies.

Through the use of Joint Operating Agreements (JOAs), as described in section 15.0 of this document, the contractor shall coordinate with the VCS system maintainers, developers, and users to obtain information required to develop necessary troubleshooting instructions and procedures.

Help Desk staff shall have the knowledge and expertise to differentiate between complex and simple requests for support, efficiently utilize the ticketing and phone systems, and conduct themselves in a professional manner through delivery of excellent customer service skills and phone etiquette.

Help Desk staffing levels shall be managed via forecasts of expected inquiry volume and workload and be presented in the Staffing Plan. Staffing schedules shall be available to CMS to review at all times and shall ensure that subject matter expertise for each of the VCS systems supported by the Help Desk is available at all times of Help Desk operation.

For reference, the table below reflects Help Desk incidents by VCS voice and system that were opened during calendar year 2008 and 2009.

Incidents by VCS Voice and System

For reference, the table below reflects incidents by Help Desk service type opened during calendar year 2008 and 2009.

Incidents by Help Desk Service Type

Service type definitions are provided in the Incident Classification and Escalation Guidelines document.

For reference, the table below reflects telephone calls to the BNS Help Desk.

Help Desk Calls 2009

For reference, the below table reflects emails to the BNS Help Desk. The number of total emails does not correspond to the number of BNS Help Desk incidents within the month. This number contains a variety of communications including: automated server alarms; multiple ticket related issue notifications generated by both the BNS Help Desk as well as outside vendors; automated telephony reports, such as ECRs; correspondence between the BNS Help Desk and external customers, as well as correspondence between external vendors.

Emails 2009

The contractor shall assume 2009 volumes for all years.

NDW Reports shall be handled by the NDW contractor.

The contractor shall deliver the Training Plan and Staffing Plan within 30 calendar days of contract award.

5.0 System’s Response Center (SRC) Support

The contractor shall maintain and support the existing physical infrastructure for the SRC (a.k.a. situation room) which is located at CMS headquarters (7500 Security Blvd). The situation room includes large flat screen monitors and physical inside wiring/connections to support remote access to Internet and CMS WAN network, and a variety of system and application monitoring tools such as CC Pulse and Business Process Monitors.

CMS requires a BNS Help Desk technician to be on site at the CMS Central Office’s SRC to monitor the 1-800-MEDICARE infrastructure including support tools and BCC operations, and to provide assistance to CMS management with Congressional and executive briefings related to these activities.

The SRC must be covered Monday through Friday for 8 ½ sequential hours starting no later than 9:00 am and no earlier than 7:00 am. For scheduled Central Office closures due to a holiday, no on-site BNS Help Desk technician will be needed. For unscheduled Central Office closures due to inclement weather or some other event, the on-site technician shall follow CMS’ emergency closure procedures.

6.0 BNS Help Desk Escalation Processes and Procedures

The contractor shall understand all aspects of the existing Help Desk Incident Classification and Escalation Guidelines document. The contractor shall implement and maintain the processes and procedures documented in the Incident Classification and Escalation Guidelines document and provide updates to that document within 120 days of contract award. The document describes the classification codes and system, means by which the contractor determines that an issue will be escalated (e.g. severity), the procedures for doing so, the notification process, and the service level agreements associated with handling escalated issues. The Incident Classification and Escalation Guidelines shall include the procedures to be followed by the BNS Help Desk when notifying CMS and other CMS designated vendors of issues with a significant impact to service.

When escalating an issue to a party other than the BNS Help Desk, the issue shall be considered to be temporarily assigned to the third party to undertake specific activities leading to the resolution of the issue. The BNS Help Desk shall remain the sole owner and party responsible for ensuring all requests for support and tickets opened at the BNS Help Desk are closed and resolved with a full disposition provided to the end user and CMS regardless of to whom the issue is assigned or who is notified via the escalation procedures. In the case of an assigned ticket, the contractor shall proactively obtain status updates to provide the end user and CMS with current information on issue resolution activity. The Incident Classification Guidelines and Escalation Plan shall include these procedures to retrieve and update the status of issues.

As part of the Incident Classification and Escalation Guidelines document, the contractor shall implement detailed standard operating procedures and JOAs to coordinate efforts with the BNS voice services and system maintainers and other supporting technology maintainers that may be assigned an issue. They include but are not limited to the maintainers of: Next Generation Desktop, MyMedicare.gov Beneficiary Portal, National Data Warehouse, Interactive Voice Response, Medicare Data Communication Network (MDCN, provided by AT&T Global Network Services (AGNS),Network Voice Circuits, Enhanced Call Routing, Speech-enabled Interactive Voice Response (SIVR) network, Intelligent Call Routing (ICR), Toll Free Network Manager, Web Center Solutions and Custom Call Reporting (CCR), and the CMS Enterprise Data Centers.

In the situation that a Help Desk ticket is determined to be due to a defect in a VCS system (including voice services), the BNS Help Desk shall coordinate a change request with the appropriate system maintainer and monitor and report on the progress of the change request. The contractor shall incorporate these procedures into the Incident Classification and Escalation Guidelines document and Joint Operating Agreements.

CMS may also be a party that is assigned a ticket. For example, if an NGD user at the Central Office requests additional responsibilities or a new user creation, the Help Desk shall log the initial request and assign the request to the appropriate Call Center Operations Group staff members to address.

7.0 BNS Help Desk Customer Communication

The contractor shall implement communication processes that enable the Help Desk to knowledgably respond to and provide status to user identified issues with VCS services and systems, as well as proactively notify the user community of service-impacting events.

The contractor shall generate and consolidate a monthly Systems Activity Report with the purpose of providing insight to BNS technical contractors concerning upcoming outages and planned maintenance activities. The report shall provide these designated CMS contractors with cross-channel visibility and an advanced view of upcoming planned maintenance activities for other areas of VCS system activity. The report shall cover planned hardware and software maintenance for NGD, NDW, MyMedicare.gov, MTKR, Stellent, LMS, Genesys, IVR, and Telecom. At CMS’ discretion additional systems may be included. The contractor shall update the Systems Activity Report weekly noting changes to planned maintenance activities and distribute these revisions to CMS designated contractors.

The contractor shall implement an internal and external Help Desk communication plans. Where appropriate, both the internal and external communication plans shall refer to related Help Desk documentation (e.g., Incident Classification and Escalation Guidelines Document).

The internal communication plan shall include:

· A description of how the end-user community interacts with the Help Desk;

· Reference to standard operating procedures (SOP) or the Knowledge Base that documents how the Help Desk staff utilizes these documents when responding to a request for assistance;

· Procedures for contacting the Help Desk;

· Help Desk contact channels (e.g., phone, email, fax, NGD);

· Roles and responsibilities of the Help Desk tiers;

· Hours of operation (e.g., holidays, business hours and after hours);

· Service Level agreements and response thresholds including but not limited to time for user notification regarding planned and unplanned outages, and user notification of Help Desk ticket status;

· Call tree procedures;

· Change in status notification;

· Issue prioritization and assignment processes;

· Impact and mitigation to business continuity of VCS voice and systems;

· Business Continuity of Help Desk operations;

· Internal and external escalation procedures;

· Closeout procedures; and,

· Expected response time during and after business hours.

The external communication plan shall include:

· Procedures for contacting the Help Desk;

· Help Desk contact channels (e.g., phone, email, fax, NGD);

· Roles and responsibilities of the Help Desk tiers;

· Hours of operation (e.g., holidays, business hours and after hours);

· A high level explanation of the process for proactively notifying the user community of service impacting issues;

· Identification of all stakeholders and their respective communication requirements describing how and when customers will be communicated with by the Help Desk;

· An explanation of how mitigation impacts to Business Continuity were addressed;

· A definition of how the Help Desk will proactively communicate with LSAs and the user community based on the criticality and service impact of logged tickets;

· An overview of the standard operating procedures and methods by which a user of the BNS Help Desk can perform Help Desk-related activities, including but not limited to submitting issues and obtaining status updates, through disposition.

8.0 BNS Help Desk Reporting and Performance Metrics

The contractor shall provide CMS with periodic reports that provide insight into service-impacting outages and associated trends. The contractor shall produce these reports on a weekly and monthly basis and shall list all open, closed and in-progress Help Desk tickets, including ticket attributes such as level of severity and time to resolve. The contractor shall also provide CMS with a quarterly and annual analysis of the information provided in the monthly reports identifying key issues and recurring trends with on-going improvement recommendations (e.g. process improvement).

Reports shall be based on all customer requests for support, regardless of repeat/similar requests for support, and shall detail the number of requests for support received, number of tickets resolved, and number of open tickets at the time the report is run and the average time to resolve tickets using generally accepted reporting practices. Additionally, the contractor shall perform analysis to correlate requests for support related to the same issue and shall report them accordingly.

The contractor shall provide ad hoc reports as requested by CMS. CMS will provide required timelines at the time of the ad hoc report request. If these timelines would impact current BNS Help Desk operations or responsibilities, the contractor shall notify CMS.

9.0 BNS Help Desk Quality Assurance

The contractor shall deliver a quality assurance plan for approval by CMS within 60 calendar days of contract start. The plan shall describe the contractor’s methodology for maintaining and ensuring quality from issue identification, to assignment and closeout. The Plan shall include at a minimum, 1) a method of identifying deficiencies in the quality of services performed before the level of performance is unacceptable; 2) a description of areas to be inspected on either a scheduled or unscheduled basis and what that schedule will be; 3) a description of how SLAs will be monitored to include a sampling procedure which describes the sampling method (e.g. random sampling) and what constitutes acceptability of the sample chosen; and, 5) how CMS user complaints will be handled.

The contractor shall deliver monthly a quality report that provides Help Desk’s performance analysis and trending not limited to but including metrics and Service Level Agreements. Additional data such as number of emails and calls to the Help Desk that were delivered and answered shall be included. The contractor shall identify a plan to remediate all performance issues. The contractor shall provide all supporting data (e.g., incident numbers, etc.). Monthly as identified in Section 3.0 (SLA Table), the contractor shall random sample incidents to ensure quality. These sampled incidents shall be included in the monthly quality report.

At any time, CMS may elect to perform a quality audit using an independent, third party.

10.0 System Support

Following is an overview of the requirements for the BNS Help Desk. The remaining sections define the task areas, performance criteria, and the additional roles and responsibilities of the contractor.

The Help Desk shall be the primary resource for all VCS voice and system user technical support. This support includes issue identification, classification, diagnosis, resolution, escalation and disposition, during which monitoring, tracking, and communication activities are taking place. The contractor shall oversee all functions of the Help Desk. The contractor shall be responsible for handling and managing all user requests for support as they relate to VCS systems.

The BNS Help Desk shall support the resolution of VCS system-related issues for the following systems:

1. Next Generation Desktop application, including all functional components thereof.

2. MyMedicare.gov Beneficiary Portal

3. Interactive Voice Response System

4. National Data Warehouse, including coordination with the CMS Enterprise Data Centers at which some system components reside (including MyMedicare.gov proxy servers and the NDW production application)

5. Speech Recognition Interactive Voice Response System

6. Self-Service IVR

7. Genesys Intelligent Call Routing

8. Computer Telephony Integration

9. Web Chat

The Help Desk will not receive requests for support directly from beneficiaries.

In support of the National Data Warehouse, the NDW Enterprise Data Center (EDC) contractor and the Data Warehouse contractor will remain the central point of contact for logging, tracking, and resolving Data Warehouse related issues; however, the BNS Help Desk shall also be responsible for logging, tracking, analyzing, and reporting Data Warehouse issues. The integrated BNS Help Desk model provides CMS a single consolidated and comprehensive view of all VCS voice and system related requests for support. A notification process shall be established between the BNS Help Desk and EDC contractor.

The BNS Help Desk will receive notification from the EDC of NDW tickets, including but not limited to: ticket opening, severity, and closure or trouble disposition. Ticket categories that may be opened for the Data Warehouse include but are not limited to: availability of data, data provider issues, data feed issues, reporting inquires, and infrastructure issues.

The BNS Help Desk shall access external telecommunication portals in support of the National Data Warehouse (NDW) to gather data files to be transferred to other entities specified by CMS within a CMS specified timeframe.

The BNS Help Desk shall support the resolution of NGD system-related issues and provide NGD LSA support to non-BCC users of NGD. The contractor shall develop a BNS Help Desk knowledgebase to support Help Desk activities. The BNS Help Desk shall act as a LSA for other CMS designated systems and applications (i.e., Web Chat). At CMS’ discretion, Help Desk LSA support may be expanded to include LSA support for additional VCS systems and applications.

The Help Desk shall address all requests for support including but not limited to: first line of troubleshooting for all VCS system (including voice service) requests for support, escalation of issues to external parties, account administration and password resets, NGD LSA responsibilities for non-BCC users of NGD, environment availability notifications, administration of non-BCC NGD licenses, requests for data to support development and testing efforts, and defect and change request management (the process of turning Help Desk tickets into change requests and tracking their progress).

Help Desk staff shall provide NGD LSA support for CMS employees, BCC LSAs, and other non-BCC NGD users. In order to provide complete NGD LSA support the Help Desk staff shall successfully complete the certification process required to become a certified NGD LSA.

The contractor shall comply with the following SLAs for NGD LSA functions. These functions include but are not limited to:

Activation, inactivation, maintenance of NGD user IDs/login and user accounts

All user account support requests shall be resolved within 60 minutes of request

Adding and maintaining NGD user personal information

Updates to NGD user personal information shall be processed within one business day.

Assisting with defining and maintaining the organizational structure of NGD user accounts

All users shall be assigned to the correct NGD organization. All NGD user ID organizational changes shall be completed within 60 minutes of request.

Understanding and maintaining user responsibilities as part of NGD user accounts

All users shall be assigned the appropriate NGD responsibilities. Requests for responsibility changes shall be processed within 60 minutes of request.

Creating and maintaining local broadcast messages and user alerts

Broadcast and user alerts shall be used when deemed necessary. All broadcast messages and user alerts shall be activated within 30 minutes of request.

Maintaining the organization-defined list of values (LOV)

All edits to the organizational LOV shall be completed within one business day of request.

Providing ad hoc reporting on activities of staff using NGD.

Report requests shall be fulfilled and distributed within one business day of request.

*The source for this information, with the exception of ad hoc reporting, is the Next Generation Desktop (NGD).

The following non-BCC users of NGD have been identified to-date; however, this list is not all-inclusive and is expected to continue to grow.

· Approximately 30 NGD users at the Office of Beneficiary Information Services (OBIS)

· Approximately 80 NGD users at the Regional Offices (RO)

· Approximately 30 NGD users at the Program Safeguard Contractor (PSC)

· Approximately 30 NGD users at the Office of Medicare Ombudsman (OMO)

· Approximately 200 NGD users at the Coordination of Benefits Contractor (COB)

· Approximately 50 CMM NGD users

Every inquiry communicated to the Help Desk shall be recorded and monitored regardless of inquiry circumstances or number of similar or repeated requests for support. The contractor shall be accountable for tracking every ticket logged by the Help Desk from entry of the ticket, triage to the appropriate resource for resolution, and to the disposition of the reported problem. The contractor shall be the primary owner of all tickets and shall be accountable for all open issues until they are closed regardless of assignment to other parties for resolution. The contractor shall proactively provide updates to the Help Desk customers in accordance with the notification processes outlined in the BNS Help Desk Incident Classification and Escalation Guidelines document for service-impacting events and shall notify customers of changes in ticket status.

11.0 Voice Network Requirements

The contractor shall be the primary resource for all VCS system user and voice network technical support. This support includes issue identification, classification, diagnosis, resolution, escalation and disposition, during which monitoring, tracking, and communication activities are taking place. The contractor shall be responsible for handling and managing all user requests for support as they relate to the VCS systems and BCC voice network.

The Contractor shall ensure that the integrity of the voice services supporting the BCC site(s) is maintained and shall provide the following support activities:

1. Second level BCC voice network support;

2. Analysis and support of the BCC voice network;

3. Reporting on and analysis of established BCC voice metrics;

4. Support of any BCC voice services billing issues;

5. Proper routing of all incoming calls to the BCC(s);

6. BCC voice network disaster recovery process;

7. Provisioning of additional voice services needed by the BCC(s);

8. Provisioning, maintaining, routing, and reporting on any BCC pilots: and,

9. Development and maintenance of agent profiles in ICR Configuration Manager Environment (CME).

A. Provides second level BCC voice network support The Contractor shall act as a second level help desk for voice services and the BCC voice network (first level support will be the responsibility of the local contact center contractors). The Contractor shall develop and maintain support documentation to be issued to the BCC contractors. This support documentation shall include the operating procedures of the BNS and procedures for disaster recovery which shall be included in the Help Desk Internal and External Communication Plans (See section 7). The Contractor shall be the interface between the BCC site(s) and CMS voice services contractors to coordinate and resolve any voice services problems. The Contractor shall maintain status of reported issues and communicate status to CMS and contact center contractors accordingly. Escalation procedures shall be performed to resolve service impairment issues in accordance with established guidelines.

The Contractor shall be the single point of contact for coordination and resolution of any voice service problems impacting the BCC site(s). All SIVR percentage based and entry point logic routing shall be managed by the Contractor.

B. Analysis and Support of the BCC voice network The Contractor shall provide the following voice service support activities with respect to BCC locations.

· Coordinate professional and timely resolution of network troubles;

· Identify problem areas and coordinate corrective action before services are affected;

· Develop and maintain an inventory list of all voice circuits located at each BCC site;

· Provide circuit configuration support to the BCC(s);

· Create and maintain a list of hidden toll free numbers supporting the BCC(s) and their uses; hidden toll free numbers are numbers established by the CMS voice services carrier to route beneficiary calls through network to the appropriate BCC site;

· Create and maintain a list of transfer codes and their destinations;

· Coordinate service order tracking and implementation with CMS and the CMS voice services provider; the Contractor shall develop and submit provisioning needs to CMS who shall then create services orders and submit them to the voice services provider;

· The BNS Help Desk shall be copied on these orders and shall track the order status with the voice services provider;

· Submit a weekly summary report of all voice service orders supporting the BCC(s);

· Create and maintain a list of all addresses and contacts for all BCC sites;

· Create and maintain a contact center profile document which details all BCC network elements for each of the BCC site, including hours of operations and yearly scheduled holidays;

· Maintain a detailed BCC voice network overview;

· Maintain detailed documents of all percent based routing allocation plans; and,

· Maintain detailed documents of all entry point routing logic.

Reporting and related analysis described above may require actions and responses to resolve issues. Therefore, the Contractor shall provide technical support and coordinate with CMS, contractors, other vendors, and voice services providers to respond to the aforementioned items.

· Attend ad hoc meetings with BCC personnel, vendors, CMS, and voice services providers; projected to be two meetings per month

· Develop plans and ad hoc reports to resolve voice service related problems impacting the BCC(s); projected to be four plans/ad hoc reports per month

The Contractor shall also help conduct and provide…