Health Care Innovation Challenge Application Information

The deadline for submitting the mandatory letter of intent (LOI) for the first round of funding for the Health Care Innovation Challenge has passed. CMS is not able to accept late LOI submissions for any reason. Information regarding a second funding opportunity, if applicable, will be announced later in 2012. Please continue to check this website for updated information.

All applications must be submitted electronically through www.grants.gov. (Search Funding Opportunity Number: CMS-1C1-12-001). Applications are due by 11:59pm Eastern Time on Friday January 27, 2012. All applicants having met the December 19, 2011 deadline for submitting an LOI are eligible to submit a full application. An LOI submission confirmation number is required in order to submit the full application.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to use the review criteria information provided in the "Application Review Information" section in the funding opportunity announcement (FOA), to help ensure that the proposal adequately addresses all the criteria that will be used in evaluating the proposals.

Note: All prime awardees must provide a Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number in order to be able to register in the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Subaward Reporting System (FSRS) as a prime award user. Further, registration with the Central Contracting Registration (CCR) at www.ccr.gov is also required in order to apply. Please refer to the FOA for further application information.

Application Corrections and Clarification

Letters of Intent

Applicants should enter their LOI confirmation number into Box 4 "Applicant Identifier" of the SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance.

Formatting and Spacing Requirements

Applications must be double-spaced and cannot be more than 40 pages in length which includes the cover letter, project abstract, project and budget narratives and the financial plan. Only the one-page project abstract may be single-spaced. Supporting materials (including documentation related to financial projections, profiles of participating organizations, resumes/CVs, relevant letters of endorsement, etc) are limited to 30 pages in length. Supporting materials are not bound by the double-spacing requirement. The total application may not exceed 70 pages in its entirety, excluding standard forms.

All text contained within the application must be no smaller than 12-point font. This includes all charts, spreadsheets, resumes/CVs and supporting documents.

Applications may includes charts, graphs or graphics within the application and budget narrative or within the supporting materials-these items are bound by the above referenced font and spacing requirements and count toward the total page limits for the section and application.

Specific information regarding the form of application submission can be found in Section 2. "Content and Form of Application Submission" beginning on page 17 of the FOA (PDF).

Required Forms

All applicants are required to complete the following forms:

• SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance
• SF-LLL Disclosure of Lobbying Activities
  *NOTE: SF-LLL is required regardless of lobbying activity, if needed mark "not applicable" where asked to identify registered lobbyists.
• SSA Additional Assurances Certifications
• SF-424A Budget Information for Non-Construction Program: Instructions for the SF-424A

Note: Page 17 of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) incorrectly lists items. Key Personnel form as a required standard form. The Key Personnel form does NOT need to be completed and is not included with the application package on grants.gov.

Note: The SF-424 "Application for Federal Assistance" form has been updated, resulting in a change in the numbering of the boxes. The instructions for SF-424 found on page 18 of the FOA (PDF) should be corrected to instruct:

1. On Item 11 Item 15 "Descriptive Title of Applicant's Project," state the specific cooperative agreement opportunity for which you are applying: Health Care Innovation Challenge.
2. Check "No" "C" to Item 16b Item 19, as Review by State Executive Order 12372 does not apply to these grants.

Note: On page 36 of the FOA (Section VIII. Appendix) Instructions for completing the enclosed financial plan template incorrectly state "the total use of funds will sum to the requested award". In accordance with the instructions stated elsewhere in the FOA, the total use of funds should include all funds required for the proposed project, both requested federal funding and non-federal sources.

The corrected section should read:

The Financial Plan requires awardees to provide the following: Uses of Funds: Awardees should enter proposed use of funds in the Financial Plan template. These funds must match Form SF 424A. Applicants should provide yearly line-item projections on how awarded funds will be allocated. The total use of funds will sum to the requested award + other non-federal funding (if applicable).

File Types and Upload Instructions for grants.gov

Any files uploaded or attached to the Grants.gov application must be of the following file formats and must contain a valid file format extension in the filename - Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, Corel WordPerfect, ASCII Text, Adobe PDF, or image formats (JPG, GIF, TIFF, or BMP only). Files containing password protection will not be accepted for processing and will be excluded from the application during the review process. The use of compressed file formats such as ZIP or RAR will not be accepted. The application must be submitted in a file format that can easily be copied and read by reviewers. It is recommended that scanned copies not be submitted through Grants.gov unless the applicant confirms the clarity of the documents. Pages cannot be reduced resulting in multiple pages on a single sheet to avoid exceeding the page limitation. All documents that do not conform to the above will be excluded from the application during the review process.

• The Project Narrative should be uploaded to grants.gov as the mandatory "Project Narrative Attachment Form".
• The Cover Letter should be uploaded as part of the "Project Narrative Attachment Form."
• The Project Abstract (one page, single-spaced) may be uploaded separately under "Optional Documents" and should be titled "Project Abstract" or it may be included as the first page of the "Project Narrative Attachment Form". Regardless, the Project Abstract counts toward the 40 page limit.
• The Budget Narrative should be uploaded to grants.gov as the mandatory "Budget Narrative Attachment Form".
• The Financial Plan template may be uploaded as part of the "Budget Narrative Attachment Form" or as part of the Supporting Materials, uploaded as an "Optional Document".