Medical Development International, B-281484.2, March 29, 1999

B-281484.2 Mar 29, 1999 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Protester's contention that agency wrongly gave additional evaluation credit to a feature of the awardee's proposal that exceeded the solicitation's minimum requirements is denied where detailed technical proposals were sought. Technical evaluation criteria were used to make comparative judgments about the relative merits of competing proposals. The judgments made and credit given were consistent with the stated evaluation factors. 2. Protest that awardee obtained an unfair competitive advantage by employing a former government employee who had input into developing the solicitation is denied where the employee's input was limited to participating in changes to an existing boilerplate solicitation. View Decision Matter of: Medical Development International File: B-281484.2 Date: March 29, 1999 * Redacted Decision DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Medical Development International (MDI) protests the award of a contract to the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNT) by the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, pursuant to request for proposals (RFP) No. 178-0418, seeking medical and health care services for inmates at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. MDI argues that the evaluation of proposals was unreasonable; that the awardee received an unfair competitive advantage by employing a former agency official; and that the price/technical tradeoff improperly abandoned the solicitation's stated evaluation scheme, and was based on a flawed understanding of the relative difference between proposed prices. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, is one of six medical referral centers operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The center has an all-male population of approximately 500 inmates requiring chronic care, and a general population of approximately 800 inmates, together with a 100-bed jail unit reserved primarily for short-term, pre-sentenced inmates. RFP Sec. A.1.1.1. The RFP, issued March 19, 1998, sought proposals for a fixed-price, requirements contract for several types of medical and health care services to supplement those already provided by the center. Id. Sec. D.2.4. Specifically, the RFP covers on-site institution services, inpatient and outpatient physician services, and inpatient and outpatient hospital services, with managed care oversight, for a 1-year base period and 4 option years. Id. Sec. A.2.1. The RFP anticipated that award would be made to the offeror whose proposal is considered most advantageous to the government, price and other factors considered. Id. Sec. D.3(a). The RFP identified three evaluation factors: technical merit, worth 40 percent of available points; past performance, worth 30 percent of available points; and price, worth 30 percent of available points. Id. Sec. D.2.3.3. Within the technical and past performance factors were five subfactors each. /1/ The RFP requested prices for the three categories of services covered by the solicitation, which were, in descending order of importance, institutional, hospital, and physician services. Id. Sec. A.2.4, D.2.3.3. The line items for physician and hospital services contain separate subline items according to whether the service is provided on an inpatient or outpatient basis. Id. Sec. A.2.4. On the RFP's price schedule, offerors were required to indicate a percentage discount deducted from, or percentage premium added to, one of two standard rates, applicable to the three categories of services. Id. The standard rates used for the pricing schedule were the applicable Medicare rate, or a similar rate called the RBRVS rate. /2/ The RFP provided the following guidance regarding the scoring of prices: Price proposals will be evaluated to determine which proposal offers the lowest price to the Government. For each category, price proposals will be ranked in order from the highest discount offered to the highest premium offered. The Offeror proposing the best overall discount from the Medicare/RBRVS rate will be considered to be proposing the lowest price. Maximum points for each category will be awarded to the Offeror proposing the lowest price and each Offeror ranked thereafter will be awarded a proportionate number of points. Once each offer has been scored in each pricing category for each contract period, scores will be combined to arrive at a total score for price. Id. Sec. D.2.3.3. The agency initially received three proposals in response to the RFP, but one was incomplete; the remaining two proposals were those submitted by MDI and UNT. After an initial evaluation, discussions, submission of revised proposals, and best and final offers, the agency awarded final point scores. UNT received a higher technical score (149) than MDI (126), and both proposals received the same score for past performance (103).