R -- Ancillary Lockbox Services

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) intends to award a sole source procurement to the U.S. Bancorp DBA U. S. Bank located in Minneapolis, MN to perform ancillary lockbox services associated with the lockbox collection of directly billed premiums for Medicare. This award is in conjunction with the basic lockbox collection services provided to CMS by U. S. Bank through a Treasury Financial Agent Agreement designated by Department of the Treasury authority. Department of the Treasury is required by law to be provided and paid for basic lockbox collection services to Federal agencies through a designated Treasury agent. The Department of the Treasury goes through a lengthy strategic acquisition and evaluation process to ensure that all designated Treasury agents meet stringent requirements necessary to provide banking services to federal agencies. The U.S. Bank has been designated by Treasury as the agent to provide basic lockbox services to CMS for which the Department of the Treasury assumes the financial responsibility for the cost of the basic collection services. The ancillary services required in the CMS contract to be awarded under this procurement are CMS specific and, although necessary for CMS, falls outside of the basic services that are required to be provided and paid by Treasury. The ancillary services required under this procurement are an integral part of the basic lockbox collection process and should not be separated from the primary collection functions provided by the Treasury agent. To remove the ancillary services from the basic function lockbox services and place them with another company would be unnecessarily redundant, procedurally devastating, interfere with appropriate audit and reconciliation, risk the possible loss of personal beneficiary information, potentially delay collection of funds, and result in additional cost. The U.S. Bank is uniquely qualified to perform the tasks in this procurement most economically and efficiently because, as mentioned above, has been designated by Treasury as the CMS? lockbox provider for which the Department of the Treasury assumes the financial responsibility for the cost of the basic collection services. A cost plus fixed-fee contract will be awarded with a base period of one year and four (4) one year options. CMS also reserves the right to continue this contract effort under the JOFOC to be in place covering two (2) two-year extensions that currently exist in the Treasury Financial Agent Agreement for basic lockbox collection services, resulting in a possible 9 year contract duration. This is a notice of intent and not a request for quotations. Businesses that recognize and can provide the required service described above must provide supporting evidence. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed acquisition based on responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. The Government will consider all responses received NLT 3:00 PM EDT, 16 Aug 2007. Responses shall be submitted to Monica N. Carter.