Forecast Delta Tracker

October 2026 · Latest read · October 19, 2026

October 2026 forecast read: CMS turned the page to FY27, five September lines vanished, and HHS moved its forecast again

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I re-opened every portal on this page on October 19. One agency published a new forecast since the September read, and it is the one that matters most for Q1 money: CMS posted its 1 October 2026 workbook, and the table below now carries all 45 of its rows in place of September's 51. Everything else is a story about where the forecasts live, not what is in them, because the two browser-only tools (the GSA-hosted Forecast of Contracting Opportunities and HHS SBCX) would not give up a fresh export to a script this month. Those rows still carry their September 10 pull, and the table says so.

CMS: 51 rows became 45, and the September lines are gone. Sixteen rows came off the forecast and ten went on. Every line that carried a September solicitation date in the last file has disappeared: Integrated Data Repository (September 8), Federal Services Systems Support and Oversight (September 14), the Enterprise Privacy Policy Engine recompete (September 25), Remote Identity Proofing (September 4), PS&R/STAR (September 16) and the NPD Ground Truth datasets line (September 1). The forecast does not say whether each one released, awarded or got pulled, so treat them as off the forecast and check SAM.gov before you assume anything. Also gone: Rural Health Transformation, the Analysis and Management System for CMMI, the expanded CJR model, the Alternative Payment Model analysis recompete, the GLOBE and GUARD, ACCESS and GENEROUS evaluation contracts, the NAM Leadership Consortium line, the MAO and PDP corrective action closeout, and the One-Third Financial Audits.

The ten new rows are mostly small, with two exceptions worth your calendar. CMS Cybersecurity Risk Management Program Support Services is a new $50M to $100M line with a solicitation dated October 20 and award dated January 4, 2027. The Marketplace Program Integrity Contract is another $50M to $100M line, solicitation February 26, 2027, award July 26. Behind them: a Hospital Price Transparency Enforcement and Compliance recompete at $10M to $20M (December 7), Payment Standardization Calculation, Application and Code Conversion at $5M to $10M (November 18), the IPF PPS, PHP, ESRD and RNHCI support line at $5M to $10M (November 16), an 8(a) recompete of CCIIO's Agile Usability Experience Analysis at $5M to $10M (April 1, 2027), an ECHIMP sole source with a June 2027 award and no solicitation date, a DME option-year exercise at $50M to $100M for February 9, 2027, a small Open Payment engineering support buy dated October 12, and Hospital Quality Initiatives Public Reporting Support with an October 20 award and no solicitation date.

Four rows moved. The Fiscal Intermediary Shared System maintainer, the largest IT line CMS has dated, slipped from an October 2 solicitation to October 20, and its award from December 15 to January 15, 2027. The Health FFRDC review moved from October 15 to October 30. The Supplemental Medical Review Contract recompete, which carried a September 11 solicitation and no award date last month, now says December 15 with a May 10, 2027 award. And Plan Management Compliance Review doubled its band from $20M to $50M up to $50M to $100M with the same January 4 date. Twenty CMS lines now carry a solicitation date inside Q1 FY27, seven carry no date at all, and four already carry dates that have passed in a file nineteen days old: HQR Analytics, Reporting, Business Outcomes and Research (October 5), Open Payment engineering support (October 12), CCIIO Security and Privacy Support (October 15) and the SourceAmerica contact center line (October 16). The page marks those as passed. Nineteen days into the fiscal year, CMS's own forecast is the only one in federal health that has been re-dated for FY27.

DHA: still the FY2025 file. The Working with DHA page links one forecast, the FY25 Long Range Acquisition Forecast, and nothing newer. The 19 DHA rows stay as the agency published them, with the dates that have passed marked.

HHS: the forecast moved again, and this time there is no deep link. The osdbu.hhs.gov address I gave you in September now returns 404. The forecast is still there, but it is a view inside the SBCX app at the osdbu.hhs.gov front door, and mysbcx.hhs.gov lands on the same app. The acquisition.gov hub links it that way too. What I could not do this month is re-pull the export, so the IHS, FDA, NIH and Office of the Secretary rows in the table are the September 10 read. If you need an IHS or FDA date to be current, open the app and filter by OpDiv before you trust the table.

VA: the query tool changed its fiscal year without changing its review date. VA's own Forecast of Contracting Opportunities page now says it covers fiscal year 2027. It is the same version 26.3.0.0 with the same reviewed stamp of May 7, 2026, so the label rolled over and the review did not. The live rows are still in the GSA-hosted tool on acquisitiongateway.gov, which I could confirm loads but could not re-count outside a browser. The 44 VA lines in the table are the September pull. The OSDBU acquisition page that acquisition.gov's hub still lists for VA returned 403 again.

GSA: one more redirect in the chain. acquisition.gov's cross-agency hub was updated on September 28 and now lists 22 agency links, not the four I counted in September. Its GSA link goes to a forecast page on gsa.gov that redirects to Find Opportunities, which points you back to the Forecast Dashboard on acquisitiongateway.gov. Same tool, two more hops. The 12 GSA rows are the September pull.

ARPA-H: the open list turned over, and none of it is a forecast. REST, STREAM and the TIGAR exploratory topic dropped off since September. Open on October 19: Emerging Health Innovators, FASTPASS, UNIQUE, SURPASS, SPECTRA, ASCENT-IBO and the four rolling Mission Office ISOs. The page shows no posted or close dates for any of them. ARPA-H has no rows this month, which is the agency's answer, not mine.

Two housekeeping notes. The DoD acquisition forecast hub on business.defense.gov answered 403 to everything I sent it on October 19, browser agent or not; the acquisition.gov hub still lists it, so open it in a real browser before calling it dead. And the CMS workbook URL for each month now redirects to the newest file, so the September link you may have bookmarked serves the October file. That is convenient and it means an old link will never show you what CMS said last month. The table keeps the dated source for every row.