The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) intends to negotiate, on a sole-source basis, under the authority of FAR 6.302-1, with the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) located at 1100 13th St. NW, 3rd floor, Washington, DC 20005; for accreditation services for ambulatory health care, behavioral health, laboratory services, and for Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) recognition. A Justification & Approval (J&A) is on file and will be posted 14 days after contract award. Health centers choose their preferred accreditation organization, the government does not mandate accreditation through a specific organization. The health centers evaluate the accrediting organization's standards and approach to reviewing compliance with standards, to determine the NCQA uniquely qualified to meet their needs. The NCQA has their own accreditation and certification processes that include pre-established requirements and regulations through which health centers are accredited/certified and or re-accredited/re-certified. Because of the varying requirements among the accrediting organizations, once a health facility achieves accreditation and/or certification status through one accrediting organization, it is impractical, costly and unarguably inefficient to transfer to another accrediting organization to gain re-accreditation/re-certification. It takes a minimum of 6-12 months to achieve accreditation/certification status; for some organizations the accreditation/certification designation is valid three (3) years (the time frame may vary from one accrediting organization to another) until renewal is required. Based on these facts, there would be a substantial duplication of cost to the Government and health centers if the flexibility for health centers to choose the NCQA were to be eliminated. Therefore, a sole-source single award IDIQ contract with the NCQA provides the needed flexibility to quickly and effectively respond to both known and unknown HHS-wide accreditation/certification requirements. Furthermore, this would support the government's needs to seamlessly provide accreditation/certification services to health centers. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this requirement is 621399, LPNs' (licensed practical nurses) offices (e.g., centers, clinics) & Physicians' assistants' offices (e.g., centers, clinics). The size standard is $7 million. Interested persons may identify their interest by responding to the requirement within 15 days after the date of publication of this notice. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed acquisition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. No solicitation is available. For further information, please contact Naomi Inazawa at
[email protected], (301)443-9048, 5600 Fishers Lane, 14W26A, Rockville, MD 20857.