RMADA3 SSN - 02012024.pdf

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Sources Sought Notice:

Research, Measurement, Assessment, Design, and Analysis (RMADA) 3 IDIQ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

THIS IS NOT A FORMAL REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) AND DOES NOT COMMIT

THE CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES (CMS) TO AWARD AN

INDEFINITE DELIVERY INDEFINITE QUANTITY (IDIQ) UMBRELLA CONTRACT

NOW OR IN THE FUTURE.

This is a small business sources sought notice posted for informational purposes only and will be used to assist the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in determining the availability of small businesses that have the capability in providing Research, Measurement, Assessment, Design, and Analysis services for models and demonstration programs created or derived under the auspices of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), and other non-ACA statutes. CMS is interested in responses to this notice from SMALL BUSINESSES ONLY (including 8(a) businesses, service-disabled veteran owned small businesses, HUBZone small business, veteran-owned small businesses, women-owned small businesses, and small disadvantaged businesses).

Your size determination will be the size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition, 541720 -- Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice.

This Sources Sought Notice is strictly market research to assist in determining the appropriate acquisition strategy to obtain contractor support services to perform the same or similar requirements to those described in this notice. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) may or may not issue a Request for Proposal or Request for Quotation. Responses to this Sources Sought Notice shall be the submission of a capabilities statement. Accordingly, CMS will not entertain questions regarding this market research, however, CMS may review and consider any submitted questions to assist in market research.

BACKGROUND

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is the Federal agency responsible for the operation and oversight of the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the Federal participant in State-operated Medicaid programs and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). CMS’ mission is to assure health care security for the general public through the management of programs that include Medicare, Medicaid, and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs and to provide leadership in the broader health care marketplace to improve the health of all citizens.

As an effective steward of public funds, CMS is committed to strengthening and modernizing the nation’s health care system by putting patient needs first, creating more flexibilities at the state and local level, and providing access to high quality care and improved health at lower costs. To help accomplish this mission, CMS was given broader authorities through legislation to test innovative models of care delivery and payment to determine whether they can maintain or

2 | P a g e improve quality and reduce cost, are sustainable, and are feasible for broader scale application.

This work includes the development, implementation, monitoring, analysis, and rapid cycle evaluation of such models, building collaborative learning networks to disseminate best practices, developing necessary technology to support this activity, conducting rapid cycle analysis of the programs and participants, and rapid reporting of interim findings and summative findings as feasible.

The scope of activities of these models consists of all areas of healthcare research: costs, access, quality, service delivery models, financing, and payment approaches. These models are larger, more complex, and may be scaled without Congressional approval if programs demonstrate cost savings while maintaining or improving quality. These highly visible models draw intense interest and scrutiny from market and oversight stakeholders, the press, and policymakers. These models often are closely integrated with existing national programs and other models in testing.

Such interactions must be carefully anticipated, understood, and managed to account for complex legal, operational, and policy priorities. These models also typically move from design to announcement and implementation in two years requiring adherence to deadlines and strong coordination across Contractors and CMS.

PURPOSE OF THE IDIQ

Under this Research, Measurement, Assessment, Design, and Analysis (RMADA) 3 IDIQ umbrella contract, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) shall award task orders (TOs) for a wide range of analytic support and technical assistance activities that support models and demonstration programs created or derived under the auspices of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), other non-ACA statutes, and future health reform legislation. The demands of new reforms created under ACA have redefined the way CMS approaches and conducts research activities, Model Testing, and demonstrations affecting Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and uninsured populations. The role of state and private sector payers is also being redefined, as many new models include multiple payers working in collaboration with CMS to reform the care delivery system. The RMADA3 IDIQ contract shall provide CMS with a robust tool to meet these needs and opportunities. The Contractor shall work with CMS on matters including but not limited to:

• Supporting all aspects of model design and operations (except information technology)

• Conducting programmatic technical, and environmental analyses

• Monitoring model site implementations

• Designing and carrying out surveys and other primary data collection activities

• Obtaining and analyzing secondary data sources including data regarding Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and data from private payer sources needed to support model design, operations and evaluations

• Reporting on formative and summative analyses

• Providing rapid cycle evaluation feedback to CMS and/or model participants;

• Creating summative reports of annual and final program findings

• Assisting in developing program templates, tools, toolkits, and driver diagrams

• Support stakeholder engagement and training

• Provide data analysis/ integration support

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• Assist in developing program-specific technical/policy resource guides and informational/ educational/ briefing materials

• Provide grant proposal reviews and summarization reports

In addition to the list above of required tasks, the Contractor may be asked to work with CMS on developing and implementing learning systems to support accelerated learning, improvement, and dissemination of promising practices.

CAPABILITY STATEMENT INFORMATION

Please prepare a capability statement addressing your company’s knowledge, expertise, and experience, within the last three years, for each of the following requirements. Please provide a response to each of the capabilities/requirements bullet points listed below. The vendor shall demonstrate experience with contracts of similar size and scope. Include the following information for each reference utilized to demonstrate experiences and capabilities:

• Name of Contracting Activity

• Contract Number, If Applicable

• Period of Performance

• Total Contract Value

• Contracting Officer, Telephone Number and Email Address

• Contract Program Manager, Telephone Number and Email Address

Capabilities/Requirements:

A. Model Design: Business Case Development

1. Conduct literature reviews, evidence assessments, environmental scans, and market research.

2. In coordination with CMS, develop recommendations for model goals. Specific

Model Design & Operational Features shall clearly define what is being tested, by whom, where, how long, and the specific purpose of the tests. Obtain Federal, state, and private health care sector data, as needed or requested.

3. Support or produce, as requested, evaluations of intervention strategies, benefits, risks, and financing options.

4. Consult with and/or engage experts internal and external to CMS, serving as an education and outreach liaison.

5. Analyze Return on Investment (ROI) for different design options for any Model Test being developed.

6. Produce, as requested, assessments of the evalu-ability of different design options for any Model Test being developed.

B. Technical Assistance- Application support

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1. Provide support and consultancy with CMS in all aspects of administering the solicitation/application (used interchangeably) process, including the development of a scoring rubric/ methodology to assigned scores to any request for Application (RFA) or Notice of Funding Opportunity.

2. Conduct readiness reviews of applicants and scale to the appropriate size of the model.

3. Assess and monitor potential and/or continuing model participants for program integrity issues.

4. Assist CMS in developing briefing materials and decision memos regarding recommendations for the selection of participants and awardees in models.

5. Revise waiver cost estimates or financial models, and knowledge of the appropriate mathematical formulation to reflect the results of the solicitation process to include in a clearance package.

C. Design, Implement, and Evaluate

During the Build Phase

1. Provide orientation and ongoing technical assistance to model participants as well as self-administered design plans.

2. Provide enrollment support to CMS and model participants.

3. Develop model-specific and cross- model quality strategies, as well as core measures and quality improvement reviews.

4. Develop operational requirements and systems for sharing data, including processes for administering data use agreements.

5. Develop viable operational requirements for monitoring including, but not limited to, providing payment audit support.

6. Perform quantitative and qualitative analyses, as well as financial analysis and forecasting.

7. Provide and support stakeholder engagement / outreach.

During the Implementation Phase

1. Implement beneficiary and/or provider enrollment process.

2. Support data sharing.

3. Create and distribute analytic files.

4. Provide technical assistance to model sites.

5. Conduct routine program monitoring activities.

6. Refine the model.

7. Maintain critical systems of record.

During the Evaluation Phase

1. Understanding the Model

a) The Contractor shall demonstrate that it can comprehensively understand a model.

The Contractor should be able to when requested, demonstrate this knowledge for any specific model in a manner that includes but is not limited to the following components:

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• A succinct background briefing that summarizes the relevant Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP statute, regulation, or policy issues pertinent to the model’s focus and research goals

• A brief, high-level overview of the model to include the goal(s) of the model, timeframe, geographic reach, target population, participants, intervention, and expected drivers of change.

2. Evaluation Design

a) Addresses all relevant research questions for a given task order and be implementable in a robust, cost-effective manner.

b) Provides sufficient detail regarding the intervention being tested and the proposed strategy for assessing the effects of the intervention.

c) Identifies testable research hypotheses and methods for addressing the hypotheses specified.

d) Selects outcomes of interest appropriate for the model, intervention(s), and research hypotheses with data sources identified.

e) Provides CMS with the results of a power analysis that derives appropriate, reasonable, and relevant sample size estimates.

f) Creates appropriate comparison groups.

g) Identifies evaluation design challenges and mitigation strategies both in the research design of the model and in obtaining data (primary or secondary) for the evaluation.

h) Provides a strategy to identifying relevant competing models, policies, waivers that have the potential to impact either the process or impact outcome for the model.

3. Secondary data collection, Primary data collection, and Integration of secondary and primary data analyses

a) Propose a strategy for obtaining timely and appropriate data, tailored to the needs of the model, recognizing data strengths and limitations.

b) Propose an efficient strategy for leveraging primary data that balances the need for contextual information with the added cost and burden of collecting that data.

c) The Contractor shall propose a detailed plan for integrating qualitative and quantitative findings in a manner that is clear, crisp, and cohesive.

4. Savings/ total cost of care estimates and Secondary analyses

a) Propose an approach to providing CMS with timely, accurate, and actionable cost information as well as savings estimates at regular intervals.

b) Analyzing secondary data identified and obtained for purposes of the evaluation that includes how it plans to leverage and incorporate multiple types of analyses and econometric approaches that include but are not limited to the use of a Difference in Difference (DID) approach and/or Bayesian analyses.

5. Reports

a) Provide key findings in a clear, concise manner in a format agreed upon by CMS.

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D. Learning, Improvement, and Diffusion

1. Manage and coordinate learning systems and improvement networks for CMS models.

2. Manage and coordinate activities related to assessment and feedback, use of data for improvement, and measuring performance towards model aims to support and accelerate the ongoing learning of organizations involved in CMS models.

3. Use a web-based platform that CMS shall provide for knowledge sharing, collaboration, networking, and reporting with the capacity to support multiple, parallel learning communities involved in learning and diffusion activities of the

CMS.

4. Develop networks capable of providing improvement and transformation support to organizations participating in program models and fostering engagement and collaboration among model participants.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REQUESTED:

Interested parties having the capabilities necessary to perform this requirement may submit capability statements in PDF format via email to Chrisopher Critzman, Contract Specialist, at (RMADA3@cms.hhs.gov)

Interested parties are encouraged to demonstrate capability on all or some tasks and to share concepts regarding teaming arrangements. Responses that demonstrate full capability and limited capability based upon selected tasks will be reviewed as a part of this market research.

PLEASE NOTE: The Government is not obligated to restructure the requirement; the Government will consider both vendor responses and programmatic needs under Section 1115A of the Social Security Act and Section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act. Please address each in order listed above under “Capability Statement Information.”

Capability statements shall be limited to 20 pages and fonts no smaller than 12 points. Capability statements shall also include the following:

Business Information --

a. DUNS

b. Tax ID

c. Company Name

d. Company Address

e. Company Point of Contact, Phone and Email Address

f. Current GSA Contracts and Schedules or Other Relevant Government Wide

Acquisition Contract (GWAC)

g. Statement about whether or not you have a Government approved accounting system. If you have an approved accounting system, provide the certification in which the accounting system was deemed adequate (e.g. the name of the audit mailto:RMADA3@cms.hhs.gov

7 | P a g e agency and audit number). You may submit this information as an attachment that will not count towards the overall page limit.

h. Business Size Status (e.g., small business, 8(a), woman owned, veteran owned, etc.) as validated via the System for Award Management (SAM) for the applicable NAICS code (i.e. 541720). All vendors must be registered in the SAM located at http://www.sam.gov.

i. Reference Points of Contact, Phone and Email Address (e.g. individuals who can verify the demonstrated capabilities identified in the responses.)

The capability statement shall designate any/all teaming arrangements and the work proposed to be performed by each team member. Specifically, the capability statement must address how much effort would be performed by any proposed team member. Note that any resulting small business set aside would require that at least 50% of the cost of contract performance for personnel be expended for employees of the concern (see FAR 52.219-14, Limitations on Subcontracting).

The capability statement shall also address the following items:

- Tasks may have a period of performance of up to ten years in length. How will your team approach and manage work associated with long task durations?

- Demonstrate through organizational experience, capacity or teaming arrangements that support personnel possess a wide-range of health care and health policy expertise, multi-disciplinary staff, and can adequately staff multiple large and mid-size models at the same time.

- Does your team have the capacity to support various tasks on several large (250+ participants) and midsize model (100+ participants) simultaneously? What experience or steps will you take to assure the highest level of quality with each task?

- Demonstrate your understanding/expertise leading the development of highly visible, complex models that require tight integration with other types of health programs and other federal vendors in order to meet programmatic needs?

- Demonstrate your experience/capability with shared learning in the health sector?

- Demonstrate your understandings/experiences developing, augmenting and collecting data on health care performance and outcome measures?

Responses must be submitted by 10 a.m. EST February 29, 2024. Capability statements will not be returned and will not be accepted after the due date.

This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the government to determine the organization’s qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted.

http://www.sam.gov/

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Confidentiality. No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).

Conflicts of Interest. It is essential that the vendor be free of all appearance of or actual conflicts of interest. Specifically, the vendor must not have any relationships or arrangements through its business operations or its employees that could be considered as possibly lessening the company’s objectivity concerning any aspect of the campaign. If such relationships or arrangements exist, vendors shall be required, during the procurement process, to identify potential conflicts of interest and discuss how the conflicts will be addressed and mitigated.

Questions concerning submission requirements may be directed to Christopher Critzman, Contract Specialist, RMADA3@cms.hhs.gov. CMS will not entertain questions related to contracting strategy.

mailto:RMADA3@cms.hhs.gov