INTENT TO AWARD A CONTRACT ON A SOLE SOURCE BASIS

The Department of Health and Human Services, Program Support Center, Division of Acquisition Management, intends to award a sole source, firm-fixed price contract to the Eighteen Nineteen Group, Inc. of Palm Desert, CA. Eighteen Nineteen Group will assist the Indian Health Service (IHS) by providing support to develop and deliver Medicare cost reports, Management cost analyses, cost report variances/explanations, support to determine the cost of delivering health care and developing recommendations on cost of care for Medicare and Medicaid to support rate setting, Critical Access Hospital financial analysis, and an ancillary cost ratio development. Specifically, the following four tasks will be performed: (1) MEDICARE METHOD E (MODIFIED) COST REPORT PREPARTATION at 42 IHS and Tribal hospitals (which are required by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) at all 42 hospitals in order to set IHS Medicare and Medicaid Hospital rates), 10 Area offices, IHS Headquarters and 1 Tribal Consortium; (2) CLINICAL WORKLOAD COMPILATION, COMPARATIVE COST ANALYSIS, MEDICARE AND MEDICAID COST ESTIMATING AND RATE SETTING, AND THIRD PARTY REVENUE STATISTICAL REPORTS gathered on workload information from several National IHS data sources and from each of the hospitals as the Medicare cost reports are being completed to identify Medicare and Medicaid billable workload. After the cost reports have been completed, the contractor summarizes applicable cost report data elements and integrates IHS workload data to form a basis to evaluate and analyze cost of delivering health care in IHS facilities. This analysis is the basis for determining the per diem payments for Medicare and Medicaid inpatient and outpatient services; (3) CRITICAL ACCESS HOSPITAL (CAH) ANALYSIS/REPORTS AND FISCAL INTERMEDIARY COMMUNICATIONS for the nine (9) current IHS CAHs to include reports and analysis of the financial and workload data with revenue projections for current ones, and for other hospitals that meet the basic 25 or less bed requirements. Follow-up work may be necessary to address audit findings by the Medicare Fiscal Intermediary. Technical assistance must be provided to potential sites to aid in conversion to CAH; and (4) ANCILLARY RATIO DEVELOPMENT to determine the division of ancillary costs to inpatient and outpatient costs for Medicare and Medicaid rate setting. The Government knows of only one source, Eighteen Nineteen Group, who is adequately familiar with and has the unique knowledge and expertise of the special IHS requirements identified by the CMS. Specifically Eighteen Nineteen Group possesses the following unique qualifications necessary to provide the required services: (1) Knowledge of and familiarity with the Method E cost report variation/adjustments negotiated in the past ten years with the CMS; (2) familiarity with staff responsible for the IHS administrative and clinical operations/information systems at over 42 hospitals; (3) knowledge of IHS accounting, reimbursement, and property systems/payment methods; (4) knowledge of workload management reports and adjustments required to determine cost and enable IHS to set rates; (5) knowledge of the roles and responsibilities of each level of the IHS, Tribal, and CMS and the protocol for collecting all necessary data; and (6) specialized knowledge in tabulating and analyzing calculation of the ancillary ratio to allocation costs to inpatient and outpatient areas. The contract shall have a base period of January 1, 2010 through September 30, 2010 with four, 12-month option periods. Interested parties who feel that they are capable of fulfilling this requirement may identify their interest by providing clear and comprehensive information supporting their claim, inclusive of references listing contact person(s) and phone number(s). This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals. However, all information received within 15 days of the publication of this notice will be considered by the Government. A determination by the Government not to compete this requirement is solely within its discretion. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. If no responses are received in 15 days, the Government shall negotiate and award a contract to Eighteen Nineteen Group, Inc.