Jump to navigation. The Rural Health Care Program, provides funding to eligible health care providers for telecommunications and broadband services necessary for the provision of health care. In addition, eligible health care providers must be non-profit or public. The goal of the program is to improve the quality of health care available to patients in rural communities by ensuring that eligible health care providers have access to telecommunications and broadband services. The Healthcare Connect Fund Program, established in , provides support for high-capacity broadband connectivity to eligible health care providers and encourages the formation of state and regional broadband health care provider networks. Under the Rural Health Care Program, eligible rural health care providers, and those eligible non-rural health care providers that are members of a consortium that has more than 50 percent rural health care provider sites, receive a 65 percent flat discount on an array of communications services. These services include internet access, dark fiber, business data, traditional digital service line DSL , and private carriage services. The Telecommunications Program, established in , subsidizes the difference between urban and rural rates for telecommunications services.
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