Electronic Certification for 467
now Available! (4/29/2002)
Beginning April 29, 2002, FCC Form 467 can be certified and submitted online
for Funding Years 2001 (July 1, 2001 - June 30, 2002) and 2002 (July
1, 2002 - June 30, 2003). Like the FCC Form 465, which was made available
for electronic certification in January 2002, this feature will allow the
user to electronically "sign," "certify," and submit the form to RHCD for
processing, without having to print out the form and mail it to RHCD.
To enable E-certification, go to "Enable E-Certification" in the new E-Certification
section of our website. The HCP for which you are applying must have submitted
a FCC Form 465 in Funding Year 2000 (July 1, 2000 - June 30, 2001)
or Year 2001 (July 1, 2001 - June 30, 2002) that was approved with
or without funding. You should also have a Funding Commitment Letter and Support
Schedule from at least one of those years in your possession. For more information
on e-certification, please go to the E-Certification section.
If you encounter any difficulties with the E-Certification option, please
call our Customer Service Support Center at 1-800-229-5476.
Equipment Upgrade
(4/19/2002)
We will be upgrading our equipment on Saturday, April 19,
2002 to Sunday, April 20, 2002. During this time, users will be able to browse
the Rural Health Care area of the web site but will not have access to certain
functions, e.g., apply online, search postings. We are expecting normal service
to be returned early morning Sunday, April 20. We apologize for any inconvenience
this may cause and look forward to serving you.
FCC Releases NPRM on Rural Health
Care Support Mechanism (4/19/2002)
On April 19, 2002, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released
a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), FCC
02-122 (Adobe Acrobat; 260 kb) . This NPRM initiates
a review of certain rules governing the universal service support mechanism
for rural health care providers. The FCC requested comments on the following
aspects of the Rural Health Care Support Mechanism:
How it should treat entities that not only serve as rural health care providers,
but also function in other capacities.
Whether to provide discounts on Internet access charges.
Whether to change the calculation of discounted services.
A notice will be posted on this web site when this NPRM is published in the
Federal Register. Comments may be submitted after the NPRM is published in
the Federal Register. The length of the comment period will be announced upon
publication of the NPRM. Comments may be filed on paper or electronically.
Instructions for filing comments may be found in the NPRM.
The news release is available here
in .pdf format.
New Terminology for Numbering Funding
Years (4/16/2002)
The terminology that RHCD uses for funding years under the Rural Health Care
Support Mechanism is changing. Funding years will now be designated by the
calendar year in which they begin. Under the new terminology, Funding Year
1998 becomes Funding Year 1998, Funding Year 2 becomes Funding Year 1999, and
so on.
RHCD is moving to this new terminology because participants have expressed
confusion about the current terminology.
Future communications from RHCD will now use this terminology to refer to
all funding years
Packet Status Report (4/1/2002)
To help you determine the status of your Form 466/468 packet, the RHCD will
post a monthly packet status report. The packet status report will be posted
to the web site on or about the first of each month. Applicants may visit
the web site to determine whether their Form 466/468 packet has been received
and whether RHCD has all of the information it needs to make a funding commitment
decision.
View Packet Status Report.
Below are links to past announcements posted on this web site. Access previous
announcements by clicking on a month listed below.
