15 firms line up against $25B CMS awards

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has been hit with 15 bid protests from companies that failed to the make the cut on its $25 billion professional IT services contract.

Known as the CMS Strategic Partners Acquisition Readiness Contract, the vehicle was awarded to 81 companies, including 54 small businesses.

The agency will use the contract for a variety of services including planning, requirement development, design, development and testing. It was awarded in early June.

The protesting companies are primarily small businesses. They are:

• 3T Federal Solutions
• All Points Logistics
• Analytica LLC
• Apprio Inc.
• Chags Health IT LLC
• Data Networks Corp.
• Delmock Technologies Inc.
• Grove Reserouce solutions Inc.
• Innosoft Corp.
• Leader Communications Inc.
• Next Phase Solutins and Services Inc.
• Octo Consulting Group Inc.
• Strategi Consulting
• Technatomy corp.
• VariQ Conviso Joint Venture LLC

The first protest was filed June 13 by Next Phase with a due date of Sept. 21. The most recent were filed June 27 with due dates of Oct. 5.

But my guess would be that, with this many protests, the agency will take some sort of corrective action and try to address the complaints raised by the protesters, particularly if there is a common theme or pattern to the complaints.

The agency has 30 days to file a response with GAO, so it is usually in that window that a corrective action is taken.

Meanwhile, the contract is on hold. No task orders or work can be performed under it.