![]() ![]() “The primary responsibility for determining whether a conflict is likely to arise, and the resulting appropriate action, rests with the contracting agency,” GAO wrote in its decision. CMS said that it would consider it an OCI situation if a bidder or its affiliate held both the UPIC and MMIS contracts in the same region.Īnother reason GAO disagreed with Safeguard and CMS is that the agency took the word of Safeguard that there was no need for a mitigation plan. Ironically, the solicitation stated the opposite. So neither Safeguard nor the agency took any steps to mitigate the perceived OCI. AdvanceMed argued that this represented an organizational conflict of interest.ĬMS said it talked to Safeguard but decided there was no conflict because one contract is for claims processing and the other contract is for IT support - not actual fraud investigation work. It was a best-value competition and Safeguard won the contract with a bid of $129.9 million compared to AdvanceMed’s proposal of $87.7 million.ĬMS also gave Safeguard higher evaluations than AdvanceMed in the criteria of overall technical approach, functional requirements and staffing plans.īut there were two problems with Safeguard’s bid that AdvanceMed saw and then raised to the Government Accountability Office.įirst, Safeguard’s parent company holds the Medicaid management information system contract for four of the states in the southeast region to process medical claims for CMS. This contract covers work in the southeastern region of West Virginia, Virginia (except Arlington and Fairfax counties and the city of Alexandria), North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. CMS has an UPIC contract in each of its regions. The contract is known as a United Program Integrity Contract or UPIC. CMS sought a contractor to provide IT support for fraud, waste and abuse work. will get a second chance at a Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services IT support contract after proving that CMS ignored a possible conflict of interest.ĪdvanceMed initially lost the competition for the contact to Safeguard Service Inc. ![]()
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