Universal Services Administration Fund (USAC)

The Rural Health Care Division of USAC is responsible for ensuring that health care providers in rural areas obtain the benefits of current telecommunications technology as provided for by the United States Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) through the universal services support. The FCC established a program that will fund up $400 million annually so that rural health care providers pay no more than their urban counterparts for the same or similar telecommunication services.

Eligible entities include:

• Post secondary educational institutions offering health care instruction, teaching hospitals and medical schools
• Community health centers or health centers providing health care to migrants
• Local health departments or agencies
• Community mental health centers not-for-profit hospital
• Rural health clinics.

Any telecommunications service and/or Internet access necessary for the provision of healthcare is eligible for support, but equipment charges are not eligible

Example of eligible services include:

• T-3 or DS3 connections
• T-1 and fractional T-1 connections
• ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network)
• Frame Relay
• Private direct line (65KB/sec)
• ATM  (Asynchronous Transfer Mode)

CHIC will provide all the administrative services for filing the necessary paperwork (three-form, five-step process) for USAC Funding. For more information and fees, contact Lyndsay Daniel or see http://www.rhc.universalservices.org/