Maximus' challenge of $79M Social Security ticket contract falls short

Maximus has lost an incumbent contract at the Social Security Administration after the company saw its protest denied by the Government Accountability Office.

The company has held the Ticket Program Manager contract since at least 2015. But this time around, Cognosante won the contract and Maximus took its challenge to GAO. Maximus argued that the evaluation of proposals was not conducted properly.

According to the GAO protest docket, the Maximus protest was denied Aug. 6.

Details surrounding the protest and GAO’s decision have been publicly released yet. But apparently, part of Maximus’ challenge was because the SSA picked the bid with a higher price and a higher technical rating.

I’m sure part of Maximus’ protest involved a challenge of the best-value tradeoff determination the agency made. The key question being -- Did the higher technology score justify paying the higher price?

I’ve reached out to Maximus for a comment and will update this post when I hear back.

The Ticket Program Manager contract is worth $79.6 million and runs for five years. Cognosante and Maximus were the only two bidders on the contract, according to the Federal Procurement Data System.

SSA's Ticket Program supports disability beneficiaries with employment services. A “ticket” can be used to get employment services from SSA employment networks. Employment networks can be government or private companies that employ people with disabilities as part of the program, according to procurement documents.

Some services the contract will provide includes call center operations, Ticket Program websites, employment network recruitment, quality assurance and audits, and data activities and reports.

The agency wants to make the program more widely available and improve support for program participants.