December 2004

FCC Releases New Order, Including New Definition of “Rural” (12/21/04)

On December 15, 2004, the FCC released a final order that changed the definition of “Rural” for purposes of the Rural Health Care Support Mechanism.

According to the new FCC rural definition, a Health Care Provider is designated as rural or urban by its US census tract. This is effective for the 2005 Funding Year which starts July 1, 2005. If all census tracts in a county are rural or urban, it is unnecessary to know the tract because the entire county is designated as rural or urban. If this is not the case, determine the census tract by calling the regional census bureau office or visit the FFIEC Web Site. HCPs which have been receiving support, but become ineligible under this new definition, will have grandfathered eligibility for three years, to ease the transition. Below you will find the rural census tract list in zipped (.txt) file format. You will also find a Word and PDF document of the actual FCC order. RHCD will be releasing more information on other items in the Order over the next few weeks and will address these topics on the next monthly conference call on January 13, 2005.

Go to the Rural Census Tract List [Zip File, 254kb]

Go to the FCC order [MS Word, 393kb]

Go to the FCC order [PDF, 360kb]

The Rural Health Care Division will be closed 12/23/04 at Noon EST, 12/24/04 and 12/31/04 (12/21/04)

Congress passes one year USAC exemption from Anti Deficiency Act (12/9/04)

The United States Senate last night (12/8/04) passed a bill (H.R. 5419) to grant the Universal Service Fund a one year exemption (through December 31, 2005) from the accounting provisions of the Anti-Deficiency Act. Once the bill has been signed into law, USAC will work with the FCC to implement its provisions. As more information becomes available we will keep you posted.

Archived Announcements

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