National Committee For Quality Assurance

National Committee For Quality Assurance, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization specializing in healthcare quality measurement, accreditation, and performance standards development, operates as a federal prime contractor (94% of awards) across the civilian health agencies with no set-aside designations, competing full-and-open on federal contracts and grants. NCQA is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity and does not hold SBA certifications; it competes on technical capability and existing relationships rather than small-business or socioeconomic set-asides.

NCQA's federal portfolio centers on the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) — a suite of performance measures used across Medicare, Medicaid, and federal employee health programs — and related accreditation and recognition services. The vendor develops, maintains, and implements HEDIS measures for data collection and performance assessment; conducts accreditation reviews for healthcare organizations under its Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program and Comprehensive Community Behavioral Health Center (CCBHC) accreditation framework; and provides technical assistance on digital quality measures, healthcare equity initiatives, and quality data modernization. Recent representative prime work includes a $9.7 million delivery order from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for Medicare Advantage HEDIS measures development and collection support (awarded September 2026, completion September 2031), a $70 million single-award IDIQ with the Department of Health and Human Services for accreditation and recognition services to HHS operating divisions (awarded August 2025, completion August 2027), a $6.1 million CMS delivery order for patient-centered medical home accreditation and recognition reviews (awarded September 2025), and a $5.1 million CMS technical assistance delivery order for digital quality measures conversion (awarded January 2024, completion January 2029).

Customer concentration is extreme and agency-specific. The top five customer agencies account for 98% of combined potential value, with the HHS Health Resources and Services Administration leading by dollars at $436.5 million across 12 awards but CMS dominating by award count at 31 awards worth $156.4 million combined potential value. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention places numerous smaller orders (20 and 13 awards respectively to two CDC offices, totaling $3.5 million), the Office of Personnel Management holds 19 awards worth $2.4 million, and the Defense Health Agency rounds out the top tier with seven awards valued at $2.9 million. This concentration reflects NCQA's statutory and de facto monopoly position as the owner and steward of HEDIS measures — federal agencies cannot substitute competing quality-measurement frameworks and therefore sole-source or competitively award work directly to NCQA on technical-capability grounds.

NCQA holds a position on the GSA Multiple Award Schedule, where 13 task orders have been issued totaling $86.5 million in combined potential value, and sits on a five-year blanket purchase agreement (BPA OPM3517A0001) with the Office of Personnel Management for ten task orders totaling $410 thousand. IDIQ vehicles with HHS have generated multiple delivery orders; the $70 million HHS accreditation IDIQ awarded August 2025 is the most recent and largest single vehicle. Work is performed across multiple locations, with administrative oversight in Washington, DC and field performance at secondary sites including Windsor Mill and Milford Mill, Maryland, Falls Church, Virginia, and Seven Hills, Ohio.

Activity has grown modestly across the source data window. Awards per year rose from two in 2022 to eight in 2024, then declined to seven in 2025 and five year-to-date in 2026, reflecting a portfolio heavily weighted toward large multiyear delivery orders rather than new-award volume. Seven awards totaling $37.1 million in combined potential value reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating recompete exposure for NCQA and opportunity windows for competitors on these accounts.

On SCI-reportable federal service contracts (those above the $150,000 threshold), NCQA reported $50.2 million in invoiced revenue across FY2022–FY2025, with FY2025 invoicing of $14.9 million across 25.1 FTEs. The trajectory shows growth from FY2022 ($10 million, 18.3 FTEs) through FY2024 ($13.9 million, 30.2 FTEs), with FY2025 showing FTE contraction to 25.1 while invoicing remained near-flat year over year. Median government-paid hourly rates on prime contracts run $178.16/hr, with 10th-percentile rates near zero (reflecting data-collection and licensing deliverables) and 90th-percentile rates at $928.36/hr (senior clinical and physician subject-matter expertise). GSA Schedule rates span $74.35/hr for entry-level analysts through $456.20/hr for physician and health subject-matter experts with doctorate credentials; no security-cleared labor roles are offered. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors account for an average of 3% of total contractor hours, with eleven named subcontractors engaged — NCQA builds most delivery capability internally rather than through deep subcontracting networks.

NCQA subcontracts to larger research primes on measure-development and program-evaluation work. It performs electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) development and FHIR implementation under American Institutes for Research (AIR) on the MIDS IDIQ, handling substantive updates to breast cancer screening, diabetes, and ADHD medication follow-up measures (two sub awards in 2025). It supports Policy Research Associates on SAMHSA IDIQ domain work and subcontracts to The RAND Corporation and MedStar Health Research Institute on evaluation and outcome-measurement projects. Sub-award footprint suggests NCQA operates as a quality-measurement and accreditation specialist within larger federally funded research consortia rather than as a general IT or professional-services subcontractor.

NCQA also receives federal grant support as a sub-recipient through state and local health departments and health systems. California Department of Health Care Services, Connecticut Department of Social Services, Children's Hospital Medical Center, and MedStar Health Research Institute have awarded NCQA sub-grant work for CCBHC accreditation program participation, transition support for youth with autism and epilepsy, and colorectal cancer screening outcome measurement aligned with federal policy priorities. The sub-grant awards reflect NCQA's role in supporting state-administered federal grant programs, particularly those funded under SAMHSA and HHS health equity initiatives.