Department of Veterans Affairs, Acquisition Opeations Service (93A), 810 Vermont Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20420

R -- VETERANS HEALTH ADMINISTRATION'S NATIONAL COMPLIANCE HOTLINE SOL 101-27-00 DUE 070500 POC Albertha Foy Garnes, Contracting Officer, 202-273-6057 E-MAIL: click here to contact the contracting officer via, albertha.garnes@mail.va.gov.. Solicitation number RFP 101-27-00 is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with FAR Sub part 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested. The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through FAC 97-17. This acquisition is unrestricted. The SIC code is 7389. The resultant con-tract will be a Firm-Fixed Price Contract. Performance period for the resulting contract will be a base year a four (4) option years. The OA&MM/ Acquisition Operations and Analysis Services (93) has a requirement for Implementation of a National Compliance Line for the Veterans Health Administration. The Compliance Line is a new initiative at VHA, it will provide an avenue for VHA's approximately 200,000 employee population to report suspected compliance violations of VHA policies, regulations, and rules without fear of reprisal. The Contractor shall provide all equipment, tools, materials, supervision, and relevant items necessary to provide hotline services for VHA compliance issues. The Contractor shall both develop and implement a compliance hotline service. This combined synopsis/solicitation is organized in five (5) parts. 1) General Requirement 2)Evaluation Criteria 3) Format of Proposals 4) Applicability of FAR Provisions and Clauses 5) Cost Proposals. 1. General Requirement The Contractor shall demonstrate past and current experience with managing a hotline. The Contractor shall have operated a hotline specifically to support healthcare compliance programs for at least six months, the contractor must be able to provide references from at least one health care client with six month experience being served by the contractor. It is VHA's preference that the contractor have experience in providing health care/hospital hotline services to a large, multi-facility system. The Contractor shall be able to provide a hotline service that is staffed 24 hours/day, 365 days/year. All calls shall be answered by a live voice, not a recorded message. Calls shall be answered by staff who demonstrate competence and experience in operating a health care compliance phone line, health care terminology, health care compliance issues, and who have an understanding of the call cate-gories as they are defined by VHA. It is VHA's preference that staff responding to calls have completed education at the baccalaureate level. Supervisory staff shall have knowledge of and experience with health care compliance issues, and management of a health care compliance hot-line. The contractor shall have processes in place to allow for the confidentiality and anonymity of the caller; callers wishing to remain anonymous shall be assigned a unique identifier number for follow-up purposes. The contractor shall have in place and maintain a training program to adequately train its staff to perform the requirements of this work, and will be able to demonstrate that this training program has been operational at least six months. The contractor shall be able to demonstrate knowledge of VA health care operations. The contractor shall have the ability to submit automated compliance call reports to VHA within 24 hours of receipt. These reports will include all of the information communicated by the caller to the call specialist during the call in-take process. The contractor shall create these reports using report writer capabilities if it is not currently part of the standard reporting package. The contractor shall generate statistical man-agement reports on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. The contractor will be able to demon-strate that it has produced such reports for at least one health care client with six months experi-ence being served by the contractor. The Contractor shall have the ability to query HHS OIG's List of Excluded Individuals/Entities and the General Services Administration's List of Parties Excluded from Federal Procurement and Non-Procurement Programs for all VHA employees, providers, and contracted agents. The contractor will be able to demonstrate that it has produced such queries for at least one health care client with six months experience being served by the contractor. The contractor shall have a process in place to retain a duplicate of all records sent to VHA. The contractor shall maintain a schedule for transfer of call files and reports to VHA or a schedule of document destruction for call files and reports as specified by VHA, in accordance with Federal Records control regulations. The contractor shall not have caller-ID on the tele-phone system or any other mechanism for tracing calls; the contractor shall not tape record any of the calls. The contractor shall ensure that a caller never gets a busy signal when trying to call the Compliance Line. The contractor shall have TTY (for hearing impaired) available and any other disabled considerations. The contractor shall have AT&T language interpreter service or equivalent. The contractor shall have an independent external audit done of the contractor's in-ternal networking system to ensure that the system is protected from outside threats. The con-tractor shall provide VHA with a statement of this certification. The contractor shall maintain uninterrupted power for the Compliance Line Telephones and computer systems, and will have backup procedures for power outages. The contractor shall have a detailed disaster recovery plan and redundancy plan. The contractor shall have computer telephone integration, and the hotline service shall be Y2K compliant. The contractor shall encrypt the information that is sent in all reports whether by e-mail or secure fax. A secure fax would be one that is protected from access and/or use by office staff who does not have an operational connection to the VHA Compliance Line. VHA will determine the way all reports will be delivered. 2. Evaluation Criteria Clause 52.212-2, Evaluation -- Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition. The Government will award a contract resulting from this synopsis/solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to this synopsis/solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors shall be use to evaluate offers: 1) Past/Current Performance, 2) Understanding the Requirement/Technical Capability, 3) Con-tractor Quality Control Plan, and 4) Price. Technical, past performance, and quality control when combined are significantly more important than price. Offerors shall provide technical informa-tion and a minimum of seven past performance references, preferably government references. 3) Format of Proposals: Proposals are due no later than 2:00 p.m. Wednesday July 5, 2000. The point of contact for this requirement is Albertha Foy Garnes (Contracting Officer) telephone number (202) 273-6057. Submit proposals via mail to The Department of Veterans Affairs, Of-fice of Acquisition and Materiel Management, Acquisition Operations and Services Analysis (93A2), 810 Vermont Avenue,NW, Washington, D.C., 20420. Proposals may be hand delivered to the same address. 4) Applicability of FAR Provisions: The following Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provisions and clauses apply to this solicitation and are incorporated by refer-ence. Federal Provision 52.212-1 -- Instructions to Offerors -- Commercial Items applies to this acquisition. Offerors must include a completed copy of FAR provision 52.212-3 -- Offeror Repre-sentations and Certifications- Commercial Items with their offer. The following clauses also ap-ply to this synopsis/solicitation: FAR 52.212-5 -- Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Im-plement Statues or Executive Orders -- Commercial Items, 52-212-4 -- Contract Terms and Condi-tions-Commercial Items, Conditions. Offers will be evaluated in accordance with FAR provision 52-212-2 Evaluation of Commercial Items, Price, and Other Technical Factors Considered. If you have questions regarding this procurement, or to request a copy of the solicitation, you may mail or fax (202-273-7448), or email the Contracting Officer. Posted 06/19/00 (W-SN466170). (0171)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0061 20000621\R-0006.SOL)