Veterans Intake Conversion and Communication Services (101)
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REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
INTRODUCTION
THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) for Veterans Intake, Conversion and Communications Services (VICCS) program. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes only. There is no obligation for the Government to acquire any products or services described in this RFI. In accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Subpart 15.201(E), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. No funds have been authorized, appropriated, or received for this effort. The information provided may be used by VBA in developing its acquisition strategy and informing, refining and finalizing the Performance Work Statement (PWS). Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted or competition sensitive information contained in their response. Only electronic responses to this RFI will be accepted. The Government will not pay for any time expended or information submitted in response to this RFI. Eligibility in participating in a future acquisition does not depend upon a response to this RFI.
BACKGROUND
VBA is one of three (3) administrations comprising the VA: Veteran Health Administration (VHA), National Cemetery Administration (NCA) and VBA. VBA is responsible for administering and delivering an array of federally authorized benefits and services to eligible Veterans and their dependents and survivors. VBA has annual expenditures over $90 billion.
VBA developed the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS), a paperless claims processing system that greatly reduces the time required to establish, develop, decide, and pay claims. The system replaces what was once a largely manual and paper-based process that had inherent bottlenecks and inefficiencies that led to processing delays and errors. Ongoing development of and continued enhancements to VBMS support VBA s progression towards an automated processing environment.
To continuously improve benefits processing efficiency and cycle-time, VBA has partnered with industry leaders to provide a host of contracted services. Some of those services include:
File Bank Extraction Services to reduce VBA s physical footprint, improving processing time and saving taxpayer dollars.
Document Conversion Services to populate veteran eFolders in VBMS with images previously stored in paper claims folders.
Digitized Mail Handling Services to provide field resources an electronic method for reviewing and processing mail previously accomplished in paper.
Records Management Services to provide storage for paper previously stored within VA facilities.
Centralized Benefits Communications Management supporting the centralization of all printing and mailing, which all VA regional offices previously did individually, and improving productivity and streamlining correspondence with Veterans on their claims.
Private Medical Records Retrieval Services supporting the reduction in the amount of time spent waiting for a Private Healthcare Provider to send medical records to VBA.
VBA anticipates continuing, enhancing and expanding the above referenced services through contractor support by means of ultimately competing this work among highly qualified and capable contractors. However, this RFI does not represent a solicitation nor is it a guarantee of a future solicitation.
INFORMATION SOUGHT
The Government is seeking the following information to be provided by the vendors when responding to the RFI:
Company Information
Capability Statement
Answers to Questions
Draft PWS Comments
3.1 Company Information
RFI respondents shall provide the following information:
Company Name
Company Address
Company Point of Contact (name, address, telephone number, email address)
DUNS Number
NAICS Codes and business size for NAICS code 518210 - Identify if your company has any of the following business concern statuses (include all that apply): Small Business (SB); Certified Small Business Administration (SBA) 8(a) firm; Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB); Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB); Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB); Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB); Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB); Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HubZone) Small Business; Large Business
Existing Multiple Award Contract (MAC) vehicles currently held by your company (examples may include General Service Administrations (GSA) schedules, Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), Indefinite Delivery Contracts (IDCs), Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs)) available for the Government use. For each MAC vehicle provide:
vehicle name
vehicle number
date of award
expiration date
3.2 Capability Statement
RFI respondents shall provide a capability statement with an overview of the company s capabilities to fulfill the requirements of the attached PWS. Overview should include but not be limited to:
Details regarding proposed joint ventures, teaming arrangements, strategic alliances or other business arrangements to satisfy requirements of the entire PWS.
Description of the company s resources available and capable of completing the work under the PWS.
Explanation of what experience providing services similar in size, scope and complexity of the VICCS PWS the company has.
List of specific contracts in the Government or industry where the vendor provided similar services on the same scale and provide Agency / Company name, contract number, contract period of performance and contract dollar value.
3.3 Answers to Questions
RFI respondents shall provide answers to the questions provided in Section 5.0 of this RFI. RFI respondents are requested to address each question. Questions that do not apply to RFI respondents or RFI respondents cannot provide answers to shall be addressed by marking these questions with N/A .
3.4 Draft PWS Comments
RFI respondents shall provide comments on the PWS in the following table format:
Comment #
PWS Page #
PWS Section #
Comment
The comments may include recommended changes, noted errors, inconsistencies, ambiguities, areas requiring further clarifications or higher level of detail, etc.
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Please submit responses via email to the Contracting Officer, Heather Hampton, at heather.hampton@va.gov. Submissions are due no later than Monday, February 4, 2019, 11:00 a.m. (ET). The email subject line must contain the following: Response to RFI 36C10E19Q0063, VICCS. VBA reserves the right to not reply to any emails, responses, questions and materials submitted in response to the RFI. Mark your response as Proprietary Information if the information included is considered to be business sensitive and / or includes trade secrets. RFI reponses shall not exceed 30 pages total. Responses shall be prepared on standard 8.5 x 11 inch paper (charts may be landscaped but must be on 8.5 x 11 inch paper) and shall be in Times New Roman, font size (12), with 1 margins. All pages of the response shall be appropriately numbered, and identified with the RFI number
LIST OF QUESTIONS
Could your company independently provide the entire range of services called for in the PWS? If your company cannot provide the entire range of services, what services called for in the PWS could your company provide?
Does your company currently have any existing contracts in place available to the Government under which the company can provide the full range of services needed to fulfill PWS requirements that would support the most efficient and rapid procurement of services? If yes, please provide the contract vehicle information (e.g., description of services; scope; contract vehicle number; period of performance; etc.)
What are performance metrics that your company used for these types of services (both qualitative and quantitative)? What quality assurance mechanisms does your company utilize?
How do you identify performance deficiencies? How do you address them? How do you implement corrective action?
What are the major risk factors in the performance of the services required in the PWS? How can those risks be mitigated?
What levels of machine learning, natural language processing, robotic processing ( bots ) or full artificial intelligence to drive automation does your company currently take advantage of?
Please describe your company s experience providing onsite organizational leadership presence at a customer s site as described in the PWS, including specific benefits and / or hurdles associated with supporting such a requirement.
Please describe your company s experiences with mail receipt, tracking, and processing, including both physical mail and mail received in digital / electronic formats.
What state-of-the-art mail processing strategies and / or emerging technologies should the Government consider as they develop their long-term mail handling strategy?
Please describe your company s experiences with any physical mail / source material screening processes in terms of personnel safety.
Please describe your company s experience with encountering and handling hazardous materials received through the US Postal Service (USPS) or another National carrier such as United Parcel Service (UPS) or Federal Express (FedEx), providing specific examples of practices used to mitigate hazardous materials.
In relation to where your company will potentially establish operations, do you foresee / anticipate any issues negatively impacting the ability to hire qualified staff, or maintain qualified staff to support consistent production operations?
Please describe your company s experience with public-facing services for enabling users to submit electronic source materials, providing specific examples for managing risk.
Please describe your company s experience with large databases and transactional activities associated with tracking source materials locally and remotely in a secure environment protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI).
Please describe any experience implementing and operating a material tracking system that interfaces with other vendors material tracking systems. Without exposing proprietary processes and / or information, please provide any recommendations for any database construct and data interchange.
Contract awardees will be required to ingest large volumes of data residing in systems maintained by VBA s current conversion and mail handling vendors. Please describe specific information related to the data your company would need to effectively ingest the data into the material tracking system and mail portal required by the PWS.
Please describe your company s experience with providing document conversion services. Additionally, describe any challenges addressing various levels of complexity (e.g., inconsistent types; inconsistent volumes; inconsistent quality; etc.) of the materials to be converted.
Please describe any experiences with electronic business processing based on multi-level processing complexity rules. Please describe the pricing structures used (e.g., transaction-based; quantity-based; price banding based on volume, price banding based on complexity; etc.)
Please describe your company's experience with providing document conversion services for original and / or historically sensitive source materials in the custody of organizations such as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA):
What measures were employed to prevent damage to the documents?
What measures were employed to restore any materials damaged during conversion?
Please describe your company s experiences with performing outbound mail services including paper and electronic or digital notifications based on recipient preferences (e.g., text notifications; alerting the user to take action; email notifications; etc.)
Please describe your company's experiences receiving source materials that are wet. Please elaborate on the procedures used to prepare such materials for conversion.
What recommendations would your company make relative to pricing structures?
What are your anticipated delivery schedules for source material tracking system and mail portal services?
What recommendations would your company make regarding performance incentives/disincentives for this effort?
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 - Draft PWS
Heather Hampton
heather.hampton@va.gov
heather.hampton@va.gov
