The Defense Health Agency has a continuing requirement for Medical Q Coded Support and Services Next Generation (MQS2-NG). This upcoming contract is to predominately help staff DOD medical and dental facilities. Additionally, the contractor shall provide professional medical (clinical) services such as ancillary, dental, physicians, and nurses.

The Small Business size standard is $41.5 million in annual receipts. Large and small businesses, get ready!

New Opportunity for Staffing Companies Supporting Healthcare

Especially now, small businesses have issues finding contract vehicles that allow them to grow their business. These issues are exacerbated for the small staffing companies that have niche industry experience. In addition, the perturbations to the workforce caused by Covid-19 and its disruptions, have given staffing companies of all sizes even more headaches. And those in the medical field have faced even more challenges because of Government mandates and individual rights.

DHA Soon to Release MQS2-NG

The good news is that the major impacts of Covid-19 are in our rearview mirror, and a sense of normalcy is starting to return. For those staffing companies that support the healthcare niche, the Defense Health Agency (DHA) will soon release the Medical Q Coded Support and Services Next Generation (MQS2-NG) Solicitation. According to the Industry Day Slides, this solicitation is expected on or about July 6th of this year and will be a $45B acquisition for services to support the full gamut of healthcare. It is anticipated that Proposals will be due no later than September 12, 2022. The anticipated award date is on or about November 7, 2022. And, the anticipated contract start date is on December 5, 2022.

The MQS2-NG contract includes both medical and dental and support services such as administration, nursing, medical coding, and related activities. The contract is expected to be a mixture of 8(a) and small business set-asides as well as full and open/unrestricted. Current efforts are split across two separate contracts that will be combined under this effort. The current contracts are held by 63 incumbents.

Increased Ceiling

As previously stated, the MQS2-NG is expected to have a $45B ceiling, which is a marked departure from the actual spend for the current contracts. According to available data, the current spend has only been in the $3.1B range, against a ceiling of nearly $8.5B with just over 80% of that with the Top 20 contractors. Given the increased ceiling, there could be as many as 150 awards made across the various categories.

How to Best Prepare Your MQS2-NG Response

At this point, it’s unknown what form the solicitation will take or what the actual response timeline will be. Having said that, there are a few actions you can take to put your organization in the best position to win this contract:

  • If you were a competitor during the last cycle, start looking at your pricing for the various labor categories and begin the refinement process.
  • Submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the incumbent contracts that most closely align with your organization. Time is getting short for this activity, so the sooner you submit the request, the more likely you are to receive the information in time.
  • Take a hard look at your staffing processes from the context of potentially providing a broad range of skill sets FOR numerous activities. Consider what you do well and your capacity to provide professionals for whatever task orders (TO) might be released. Also, consider whether you want to be a provider of this broad range support or if you will fit better fulfilling some of the niche positions. Given that this is projected to have a 10-year-contract term, if you start off in a niche, you will have the opportunity to expand your capability and capacity.
  • Complete vendor registration at https://piee.eb.mil/ , as you will be required to submit an electronic bid/offer submission through the PIEE Solicitation Module. Be sure that individuals responsible for submission are fully familiar with the module and attend any provided training.
  • Consider performing a Price-to-Win (PTW) study to determine a winning price point

Industry Day Set for April 28th

The Defense Health Agency (DHA) is hosting a virtual DHA Medical Q-Coded Support and Services – Next Generation (MQS2-NG) Industry Day on April 28 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM ET. Register here.

MQS2-NG Proposal Consultant Support Services

We know that, usually, there are about three bidders for every award.  This means that we can expect 200 – 300 bidders for this contract. If your team is interested in bidding and needs help, please reach out below.

We’ll update this article as more information becomes available as we get closer to the solicitation release date.

GovWin Opportunity ID: 181380 (Sam.gov has no ID assigned at this time, but does have a pre-solicitation notice).

Sam.gov: HT0015-22-RFI-0142