Rural Health Care
About Rural Health Care:
- Overview of the Program
- Overview of the Process
- Monthly Conference Calls
- Individual Outreach
- Understanding Audits
- Training Events
- Filing Appeals
- FCC Links
- Rural Health Care Pilot Program
Rural Health Care Tools:
October Discussion Summary
The following topics were discussed on the October monthly outreach conference call:
- Contracts ending during the funding year
- Changes to the FCC Form 466/466-A
Contracts ending during the funding year:
An email was sent out to all health care providers on October 5, 2009 in order to provide information on what steps need to be taken if an evergreen contract expires during a funding year. This was also the main topic of discussion on the October conference call with applicants and service providers. The following is a summary of the issue and discussion:
The Rural Health Care Program requires all applicants to competitively bid for services requested on their FCC Form 465. While applicants with a contract determined by RHC to be evergreen do not need to post a Form 465 for the life of that contract, if that contract ends during the middle of a Funding Year, USAC can provide funding only through that contract end date.
Evergreen status ends when the contract ends, and applicants must either post a Form 465 or – if one was posted during the current Funding Year – modify its Form 465 and allow for competitive bidding on all services that will be coming out of evergreen status. After the competitive bidding process, applicants must then submit a new Form 466 or 466-A in order to receive funding for the time period after its evergreen contract ends.
If your contract has been endorsed as evergreen and you have not posted a Form 465 for the current funding year, you will need to post a Form 465 at least 28 days prior to the end of your evergreen status end date in order to assure uninterrupted support. Because you can only submit one Form 465 per Funding Year, if you need to modify a previously posted Form 465, you may send your request to rhc-admin@universalservice.org, or call 1-800-229-5476. You should indicate sufficient information on Line 29 of the Form 465 to enable service providers to provide an accurate bid for services. Your 28-day waiting period will restart for the modified portion of the Form 465.
If you do not complete competitive bidding and sign a new contract prior to the expiration of your current contract and go month-to-month, you will still need to file or modify a Form 465 to continue to receive support.
An example:
HCP 12345 has an evergreen contract that ends January 30, 2010. The applicant will complete one Form 466 to cover the period from July 1, 2009 to January 30, 2010. The applicant will either post a new Form 465 or modify a previously posted Form 465, in this example, no later than January 2, 2010 (in order to comply with the 28-day posting requirement prior to signing a contract with any service provider). After the applicant has completed the competitive bidding process, selected a service provider, and signed a new contract, it will submit a new Form 466 to cover the period from February 1, 2010 to June 30, 2010.
Further, an explanation was provided of what steps a HCP needs to take if a contract ends during a funding year, the service then goes month-to-month, and then a new contract is signed. In this case, the HCP would need to submit a FCC Form 466/466-A for the period from the start of the funding year (July 1) to the end of the contract, a second Form 466/466-A from the date that month-to-month service began until a contract was signed, and then a third Form 466/466-A from the date a new contract was signed to the end of the funding year.
Changes to the FCC Form 466/466-A:
The FCC online Form 466/466-A process has been modified. Although the substance has not changed, Applicants are now required to provide information in most fields when submitting the Form 466 electronically; the same requirements will be in place for the Form 466-A by the end of November. Applicants will not be able to submit an application if any of the required fields are left blank. Applicants were encouraged to begin collecting required information well in advance of the end of the funding year to ensure they are able to submit their forms.
