Rural Health Care Outreach Conference Call Minutes
July 10, 2003

Applicant participation in Funding Year 2003 and electronic certification of forms has risen this year. Over 150 Form 466s and a significant number of the over 1,800 Form 465s received for Funding Year 2003 were e-certified.

Rural Health Care offered tips and guidance for completing the new Form 466 and ensuring faster processing. All Form 466s, whether submitted electronically or on paper, must submit documentation of the rural rate they are paying for their service. This can be accomplished through one of the following ways:

• A copy of a telephone bill showing the applicant name, type of service, and cost
• A signed letter from a service provider representative on company letterhead, containing the HCP’s name, address, type of service, and cost
• For large consortia where the individual site does not have access to a copy of the bill, a letter containing the locations of the individual sites and the amounts billed to them for the telecommunications services being supported, broken down by circuit.
  

Without this documentation of the rural rate, an applicant’s Form 466 cannot be processed. Depending upon the method requested by the applicant to calculate support, additional documentation may also be needed:

• Urban rate documentation, when requesting urban/rural comparison and using your own urban rate rather than the one calculated by RHCD. The documentation must demonstrate how the rate was calculated.
• A copy of the contract, signed by both a service provider representative and a representative of the health care provider, if you are seeking support while under a contract.
• Documentation of bids submitted by service providers in response to the Form 465 posting, if you have indicated that you have received bids in Block 7 of the Form 466.
• A circuit diagram, particularly if multiple carriers are involved in providing your circuit, or if you have a network of several health care providers.
  

These documents are needed for audit and program integrity purposes. Since Form 468 has been eliminated for FY 2003, RHCD requires a method of verifying the rates paid by the health care provider.

Applicants using Form 466 electronically while logged in will find that they have the option to create a new Form 466, or can create one with data pre-filled from a previous year. Those who select a pre-filled Form 466 will find Blocks 1 through 3 pre-filled, as well as selected lines of Block 4. The applicant must furnish the rate or mileage information in Blocks 5 or 6, and check the boxes in Blocks 7 and 8.

RHCD strongly encourages applicants to submit their Form 466/468 packets for Funding Year 2002 as soon as possible. The deadline will be in early September 2003. RHCD estimates that it has yet to receive packets from over 300 applicants who have filed a Form 465 for the funding year.

RHCD has no new developments to report on the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

Questions?
Call our toll free number 1-800-229-5476 8am-8pm (EST) Monday-Friday.