Hospital Quality Reporting System (HQR) Bridge Limited Source Justification

Summary (Newest Update)

Background The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is procuring agile software development services to maintain and enhance the Hospital Quality Reporting (HQR) system. The HQR system is crucial for CMS's statutory obligations under the Social Security Act, ensuring accurate and timely payments and penalties to Medicare-participating providers across ten individual hospital quality reporting programs. Work Details The contractor will be responsible for all operations and maintenance (O&M) of the HQR system, ensuring it remains current with evolving user experience requirements, data integration capabilities, and quality reporting program changes. The contractor must provide logical access to systems and tools from day one of the contract period. A lapse in services or transition to an unprepared contractor could expose CMS to significant legal and operational risks, including failure to issue accurate Medicare payments, disruption of the Hospital Star Ratings publication cycle, loss of data integrity across millions of production files, and breach of interagency data-sharing commitments. Period of Performance The contract was awarded on June 21, 2021, with a performance period from August 7, 2021, to May 6, 2026. Place of Performance The performance location is not explicitly stated in the provided information.