The FCC released its final rule updating the Rural Health Care Program. Established in 1997, the program offers discounted rates for rural broadband and other communications services to support virtual health care services.
Healthcare providers eligible for the funding include community health centers or health centers providing health care to migrants, local health departments or agencies, community mental health centers, nonprofit hospitals, and rural health clinics. As of funding year 2017, the Rural Health Care Program grant total is capped at $571 million annually, adjusted for inflation.
The final rule includes four updates:
- Permitting conditional approval of eligibility for healthcare providers to allow them to begin competitive bidding and request funding.
- Moving back the deadline for providers to change their Service Provider Identification Number to align with the invoice deadline, giving participants more flexibility with deadlines.
- Eliminating the ‘standard urban distance’ component of the urban rate calculation rules to simplify the rate determination process.
- Permitting healthcare providers to request changes to their contract dates following a funding commitment.
The updates aim to improve provider participation in the program and ease administrative burden. For instance, by allowing conditional approval of eligibility, the agency hopes to ensure that healthcare providers who expect to become eligible for the program in the near future do not miss out on funding.
Additionally, removing the ‘standard urban distance’ provision aims to simplify the process of calculating urban rates. The provision mandates that the urban rate for a service provided over a distance greater than the standard urban distance “is the rate no higher than the highest tariffed or publicly-available rate provided over the standard urban distance,” according to the Order. Standard urban distance is defined as “the average of the longest diameters of all cities with a population of 50,000 or more within a state.”
The agency noted in its final rule document that there is no evidence that eliminating the standard urban distance provision will adversely impact healthcare providers. That’s because few participants calculate urban rates using this distinction. From now on, urban rate calculations will be based on rates provided in a city.
The FCC established a deadline of July 1, 2024, for healthcare providers to submit invoices for unclaimed funds from the funding year 2019, and earlier that did not have an invoice deadline. There is currently $22.2 million in unclaimed funding commitments from this period, according to the agency.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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