Training, Quality Assurance and Content Development (TQC) Bridge Contract   3

The purpose of this contract is to obtain support to develop and maintain training and content for use by customer service representatives (CSRs) within the CMS Contact Centers of Operations (CCO). These training and content materials are used by CSRs to respond to inquiries from beneficiaries and consumers related to Medicare and Marketplace programs. The contractor shall support the efficient delivery of multichannel customer service for Medicare and Marketplace inquires, including training and content materials for CSRs that are complete, accurate, and consistent across all contact center channels.

This TQC Bridge Contract was not awarded competitively because CMS is already in the process of completing a competitive procurement for continuation of these services. An unsuccessful Offeror submitted a protest to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) in October 2022. The protest will not be resolved in time to allow for an adequate transition period prior to expiration of the prior TQC contract on January 31, 2023 (HHSM-500-2013-00099C). CMS requires that these critical TQC support services continue during the time period January 31, 2023 (when the prior contract expired) through the time the follow-on contract is awarded and fully transitioned.

Pursuant to FAR 16.301-2, Application , this contract is not suitable for a fixed-price contract type due to the uncertainties associated with the program requirements, which do not allow costs to be estimated with sufficient accuracy. Additionally, in a fixed price contract, because the price is fixed and does not vary for a set scope of work, the vendors must consider many possible project scenarios and account for the most costly of those scenarios in its price. Therefore, fixed price contracts typically result in higher priced contracts when compared with cost reimbursable contracts for identical operations.