VA developing clearinghouse contract for healthcare transactions

The Veterans Affairs Department has kicked off work on a contract to acquire clearinghouse services for transmitting millions of electronic transactions.

A VA financial services center receives and processes medical claims for the agency, as well as other government entities. Clearinghouse services transmit incoming and outgoing healthcare transactions to the national payer community.

The request for information contains a list of 72 policies, guidance items and regulations the contract will need to comply with. Chief among these of course are privacy requirements stemming from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Reponses to the RFI are due April 29.

That sources sought notice also describes several security requirements bidders will have to comply with: no thumb drives, controlled access to facilities and systems, and mandatory notifications to the VA of employee terminations within 24 hours afterward.

All bidders must be accredited by the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission.

The agency is using the RFI to help formulate its acquisition strategy. There is no indication that they are specifically looking to make this a small business or veteran-owned business contract.

But we do note the VA uses veteran-owned businesses if it finds there are enough of them to conduct a competition.

Requests for information are a critical tool for the VA in making that determination of whether to set aside a contract for veteran-owned businesses. So if you are interested, you should respond to the RFI.