USTelecom Proposes Changes in FCC's Rural Health Care Program During Pandemic

In order to provide further support to healthcare providers, the Federal Communications Commission should, in addition to adopting final rules for the proposed Connected Care Pilot Program, consider the following actions during the emergency:

• Temporarily increase the annual undiscounted cost of eligible expenses Healthcare Connect Fund Program applicants may apply for and remain exempt from the competitive bidding requirements to up to $100,000. Consider allowing Telecommunications Program applicants to also benefit from this exemption.
• Open a new application filing window for Funding Year (FY) 2019 funding requests and waive competitive bidding requirements as well as the FY 2019 rural health care support mechanism funding cap to allow healthcare providers to immediately access more bandwidth and associated support for the remaining months of Funding Year 2019. Because healthcare providers may experience increases in demand of several times their normal patient contacts during the COVID-19 pandemic, allow eligible healthcare providers who seek only to increase bandwidth capacity or add eligible locations under an existing telecommunications service contract to extend the term of their contract and increase the amount of their funding requests for eligible services as needed for doing so, without resoliciting bids or re-applying to USAC for approval of a separate funding request.
• Waive or significantly increase the rural health care support mechanism funding cap for FY 2020 if necessary to accommodate increased demand.
• Postpone the implementation schedule for the new rules adopted in the RHC Promoting Telehealth Report and Order by one year to allow healthcare providers (HCPs) to obtain services and apply for support with a minimum of disruption and uncertainty. Given the significant additional effort required by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to implement new rules and the immediate need for additional support for HCPs, now is not an optimal time to implement major changes to the Rural Health Care Program.
• To the extent not already addressed by the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau, suspend or postpone audit fieldwork and deadlines for responding to document or information requests from USAC auditors, in order to allow healthcare providers and service providers to devote all available resources to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Make a separate allocation of funds available for “Category 2” Internal connections, basic maintenance and managed internal broadband services for eligible healthcare providers (consistent with support for such services in the E-rate program) during the COVID-19 pandemic.