PROPOSED ACQUISITION STRATEGY POC William J. Tate, (410) 966-1535. The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) awarded a contract in January 1994 to GTE Government Systems Corporation for the analysis, design, development, validation, implementation and maintenance of a Medicare Transaction System (MTS) under which there would be a single, integrated system to process Medicare claims. Upon development, validation and acceptance of MTS, HCFA would utilize MTS in a number of operating sites that may or may not have the same functional responsibilities. HCFA will select the operating sites utilizing competitive acquisition(s). It is HCFA's purpose in this notice to set forth proposed acquisition strategy leading from the MTS contract with GTE to HCFA competitive acquisition(s) for the operating sites. In support of the requirements of the Design Phase under which GTE will provide to HCFA System Design Alternatives (SDA) and the Validation Phase under which GTE will demonstrate the claims processing functionality requirements of the MTS in an operational environment, GTE will be conducting competitive acquisition(s) to identify hardware and software components which support the operational configuration of the ultimate system. One important and critical purpose of GTE's competitive acquisition(s) would be for GTE to develop a baseline for the platform of equipment and software (inclusive of the DBMS) that would populate and meet the functional requirements of the proposed operating sites. During the evaluation and selection process GTE may test proposing vendors' hardware and software for compliance with the MTS functional requirements. GTE would then incorporate the set of successful equipment and hardware into the various design alternatives for submission to HCFFA. Upon selection by the Government of the MTS System Design Alternative (SDA) the corresponding configuration of equipment and software that would run the MTS under the selected SDA would be included in HCFA's competitive solicitation(s) for operating sites. GTE anticipates entering into agreements with the successful vendors under their acquisition that would include equipment/software prices, delivery schedules, warranty, maintenance and technology enhancement provisions. GTE's agreements would also allow offerors awarded contracts under HCFA's competitive acquisition(s) for operating sites to acquire directly from GTE's vendors under the terms and conditions of those agreements. It should be noted that offerors interested in proposing hardware and/or software to run the MTS at operating sites should participate in GTE's acquisition(s) in that it will be the only vehicle to qualify your hardware and/or software for inclusion in the MTS baseline configuration. This configuration will be incorporated into HCFA's specifications for the MTS operating sites. Thus, offerors proposing for HCFA's operating site acquisition(s) will be permitted to provide only the hardware and/or software set forth in the operating site solicitation(s). Organizations that would like to be placed on GTE's Bidders List or that have questions in regards to GTE's acquisition(s) should contact Mr. Robert G. Joynson, GTE Government Systems, Chantilly, Virginia (703) 818-5724 within two weeks of this announcement. Questions in regards to this notice should be directed to Bill Tate (HCFA) (410) 966-1535.

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