Requests for Proposal
Solicitation No. AHRQ-08-10009
Proposals Due: March 13, 2008
Project Officer: Marie Stagnitti, Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends (CFACT)
Contracting Office: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Contracts Management, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD 20850; Mary Haines, Contracting Officer
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is requesting proposals on a full and open competition basis to perform the maintenance and fielding of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Support—Medical Provider Component (MPC) which will include collecting, abstracting, and cleaning data collected from the medical providers. For all medical provider types, the Contractor will also be responsible for statistical matching of data from the MEPS-MPC to the MEPS-Household Component (HC) and producing matched data files, including documentation and codebooks. In addition for prescribed medicines, the Contractor will be responsible for statistical and analytical editing and imputation of the data. (Note: the MEPS Household Components requirement is a separate contract to be awarded.)
The contract will be performance based for an initial period of performance of three and one-half years with three three-year option, under North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code 541720.
The primary objective of the MPC is to collect data from medical providers (hospitals, physicians, home health care agencies, pharmacies, long term health care facilities) on expenditures for medical services provided to MEPS sample persons. MPC data serve as an imputation source for item nonresponse to reduce the level of bias in survey estimates of medical expenditures. It also serves as source of expenditure information on physician charges that are associated with hospital care but not billed by the hospital as well as serving the primary source of expenditure information for Medicaid recipients and prescribed medicines. Offerors must meet requirements of the Pro-Children Act of 1994, Buy American Act, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Privacy Act, Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), federal policy for the protection of human research subjects (45CFR46) which will include an Institutional Review Board (IRB) review, and the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Tasks will revolve around the MEPS-MPC which collects data from all hospitals, emergency rooms, home health care agencies, outpatient departments, long term health care facilities and pharmacies reported by MEPS Household Component (HC) respondents as well as all physicians who provide services for patients in hospitals but bill separately from the hospital. Office-based medical providers where the provider is either a doctor of medicine (MD) or Osteopathy (DO) or practices under the direct supervision of an MD or DO are included in the MPC as well. Long term health care facilities include nursing homes, assisted living facilities, rehabilitation facilities, as well as any health care facility providing medical care to those reporting such care in the HC of the MEPS.
Offerors must possess comprehensive expertise in data collection, abstraction and coding of medical and billing data from various types of health care providers, as well as extensive statistical expertise and extensive experience in data file development and documentation. In order to evaluate the Offeror's expertise in the aforementioned areas and on the processes to perform such tasks, the following must be included in the proposal:
- Implement and document a sample.
- Unduplication within a sample.
- Identification of hospital physicians.
- Maintenance of survey questionnaires and materials.
- Recruit, manage and train data collection staff, abstraction staff, and coding staff.
- Data collection from hospitals, hospital identified physicians, office based sample (includes HMOs), agency home health care providers, pharmacies, and long term health care facilities.
- Data processing.
- Development of security plan.
- Forms control and receipt.
- Data entry.
- Coding and cleaning of data.
- Matching data.
- Editing and imputation of prescribed medicines data.
- Preparation and delivery of internal MPC Files including archival versions of the full operational database and the following medical event files: hospital stays (includes hospital identified physician and their payments and can be identified as such), emergency room visits, outpatient department visits, medical provider visits (includes HMOs), home health care visits, long term care stays (includes assisted living facilities, nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities, etc.), and prescribed medicines.
Offeror must also provide an overall plan for coordinating deliverables including data files and materials between the HC and MPC contractors, particularly those occurring concurrently or in a linked manner; integration of data collection methods and processing, as well as data cleaning, data abstraction and matching tasks; the statistical and substantive soundness of the data matching and data editing and imputation (for prescribed drugs only) techniques proposed; quality control; and a plan for addressing innovation and technological advancements and capability to maintain compatibility with industry mechanisms.
The MEPS-MPC is to be comprised of core staff of seasoned professionals with education and experience in areas such as data collection from medical care providers of charge and payment, condition, and medical procedures and services data, and; abstraction of medical and billing records; coding of health care data; statistical matching of records; statistical and analytical editing and imputation of prescribed medicines data; health care facilities billing systems and operations; training; and constructing large databases. A PMI-certified Project Manager is required as well as demonstrated ability to provide EVM information. In the event that the MEPS-MPC core staff does not include particular expertise needed to accomplish a particular task, the MEPS-MPC is to obtain such expertise through consultants and/or subcontracts. Subcontracting to meet the HHS' socio-economic goals must be included in the offeror's proposal. Potential offerors are encouraged to visit the MEPS Web site at http://www.meps.ahrq.gov.
It is the offeror's responsibility to monitor this site for any subsequent amendments.
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Current as of February 2008
Internet Citation:
Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Medical Provider Component (MPC) Support: Requests for Proposal. February 2008. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/fund/contarchive/rfp0810009.htm
540 Gaither Road Rockville, MD 20850 