Social Security Administration, Deputy Commissioner for Finance, Assessment and Management, Office of Acquisition and Grants, 1710 Gwynn Oak Avenue, Baltimore, MD, 21207-5279

70 -- SSA IS SEEKING A CONTRACTOR WHO CAN DEVELOP AND TEST THE GENERIC INTERFACE AND THE NECESSARY MODIFICATIONS TO THE DDS SOFTWARE SYSTEMS. SOL Reference-Number-LJH-00-Versa DUE 052400 POC Leslie Hyman, Contract Specialist, Phone 4109659476, Fax 4109659560, Email leslie.hyman@ssa.gov -- Junghie Elky, Contract Specialist, Phone 4109659483, Fax 4109659560, Email junghie.elky@ssa.gov WEB: Visit this URL for the latest information about this, http://www.eps.gov/cgi-bin/WebObjects/EPS?ACode=R&ProjID=Reference-Num ber-LJH-00-Versa&LocID=2422. E-MAIL: Leslie Hyman, leslie.hyman@ssa.gov. The Social Security Administration (SSA) plans to develop an electronic interface that transmits data between itself and its partners in the Disability processing program. Under titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act (42 USC 402 and 416), SSA mandates the State Disability Determination Services (DDS) in each state to perform determinations of disability for the residents of that state who file for Social Security disability benefits. In addition to each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territorial governments of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands have established DDS entities. SSA has also established a Federal DDS, which, among other functions, serves as a test bed of policy and procedure for the disability program. There are approximately 117 DDS sites nationally. DDS sites are diverse in size, ranging from staff of 2 to 875, although most fall in the 35 to 350 range. Many of the states use licensed proprietary software developed by Versa. Theyhave contracts specific to each state and they have state maintenance agreements with Versa to support the code. In addition, each state has, by necessity and choice, customized the code to meet their specific requirements. The current lines of code vary from state to state, depending on the degree of customization and the interface to the state systems, but a representative estimate is approximately 1,000,000 lines of code per state. Over the last few years, SSA and the DDSs have been engaged in major initiatives to improve the administration of the disability programs. These initiatives included enhancements to the disability information systems used within SSA and the DDSs. SSA has updated its strategy for automating enhancements to the Disability program. The revised strategy, the Electronic Disability system (eDib), is a comprehensive project for all components in the disability processing enterprise. One of the major objectives of eDib is to provide access to and sharing of disability information to all disability processing components through an Electronic Folder. The Electronic Folder is pictured as a data store that contains information that is directly or indirectly important to processing disability cases. The first step towards implementing the Electronic Folder will involve creating a generic interface between SSA and the DDSs. SSA will identify and describe the interface standards and the initial set of data elements. SSA is seeking a contractor who can develop and test the generic interface and the necessary modifications to the DDS software systems. These modifications should be designed so that, in the future, data elements can be added without requiring the DDSs to make additional modifications. This interface must preserve, to the greatest extent possible, the specific user interfaces and user screen presentations which exist in the current DDS systems, so as to minimize potential work flow impact and the need for user retraining. SSA will not provide the Versa proprietary source code. Vendorshaving the capability and experience to provide such a service are invited to submit complete details. The details must include the following: Demonstrated success in writing and supporting COBOL applications on the IBM AS/400 platform; A detailed explanation of the strategy that will be used in dealing with the Versa proprietary source code and data structures. Responses must clearly state the ability to provide the service required. Interested parties must respond to this notice in writing within 15 calendar days from the date of this publication. Please refer to LJH-00-Versa. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ONLY! This is not a request for proposal (RFP). No contract award will be made on the basis of responses received; however, this information will be used in SSA's assessment of capable sources. The Government does not intend to pay for information received. REQUESTS FOR COPIES OF A SOLICITATION WILL NOT BE HONORED OR ACKNOWLEDGED. Posted 05/09/00 (D-SN452898). (0130)

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