N.Y. Public Health Law § 3005: Ambulance service certificates

§ 3005. Ambulance service certificates. 1. No ambulance service

operating for profit, hospital ambulance service or municipal ambulance

service of a city of over one million population shall operate on or

after September first, nineteen hundred seventy-five unless it possesses

a valid ambulance service certificate issued pursuant to this article.

Effective January first, nineteen hundred ninety-seven, no ambulance

service shall be operated unless it possesses a valid ambulance service

operating certificate issued pursuant to this article or has been issued

a statement of registration. No advanced life support first response

service shall operate unless it possesses a valid advanced life support

first responder service operating certificate. Effective January first,

two thousand, no ambulance service shall be operated unless it possesses

a valid operating certificate.

2. The department shall issue an initial certificate to an ambulance

service certified prior to the effective date of this section upon

submission of proof that it is the holder of a valid ambulance service

certificate and is otherwise in compliance with provisions of section

three thousand nine of this article.

2-a. Prior to January first, two thousand, the department shall issue

an initial certificate to a registered ambulance service in possession

of a valid registration provided that such service has been issued an

exemption issued by a regional council pursuant to subdivision five-a of

section three thousand three of this article.

3. The department shall issue an initial certificate to an advanced

life support first response service upon submission of proof that such

advanced life support first response service is staffed and equipped in

accordance with rules and regulations promulgated pursuant to this

article and is otherwise in compliance with provisions of section three

thousand nine of this article.

4. A certificate issued to an ambulance service or advanced life

support first response service shall be valid for two years. The initial

certification fee shall be one hundred dollars. Thereafter the biennial

fee shall be in accordance with the schedule of fees established by the

commissioner pursuant to this article. However, there shall be no

initial or renewal certification fee required of a voluntary ambulance

service or voluntary advanced life support first response service.

5. No initial certificate (except initial certificates issued pursuant

to subdivision two of this section) shall be issued unless the

commissioner finds that the proposed operator or operators are competent

and fit to operate the service and that the ambulance service or

advanced life support first response service is staffed and equipped in

accordance with rules and regulations promulgated pursuant to this

article.

6. No ambulance service or advanced life support first response

service shall begin operation without prior approval of the appropriate

regional council, or if there is no appropriate regional council

established such ambulance service or advanced life support first

response service shall apply for approval from the state council as to

the public need for the establishment of additional ambulance service or

advanced life support first response service, pursuant to section three

thousand eight of this article.

7. Applications for a certificate shall be made by the owner of an

ambulance service or advanced life support first response service

operating for profit or the responsible official of a voluntary

ambulance service or advanced life support first response service upon

forms provided by the department. The application shall state the name

and address of the owner and such other information as the department

may require pursuant to rules and regulations.

8. For purposes of this article, competent means that any proposed

operator of any ambulance service or advanced life support first

response service who is already or had been within the last ten years an

incorporator, director, sponsor, principal stockholder, or operator of

any ambulance service, hospital, private proprietary home for adults,

residence for adults, or non-profit home for the aged or blind which has

been issued an operating certificate by the state department of social

services, or a halfway house, hostel, or other residential facility or

institution for the care, custody, or treatment of the mentally disabled

subject to the approval by the department of mental hygiene, or any

invalid coach service subject to approval by the department of

transportation, is rendering or did render a substantially consistent

high level of care. For purposes of this subdivision, the state

emergency medical services council shall adopt rules and regulations,

subject to the approval of the commissioner, to establish the criteria

to be used to define substantially consistent high level of care with

respect to ambulance services, advanced life support first response

services, and invalid coaches, except that the commissioner may not find

that a consistently high level of care has been rendered where there

have been violations of the state EMS code, or other applicable rules

and regulations, that (i) threatened to directly affect the health,

safety, or welfare of any patient, and (ii) were recurrent or were not

promptly corrected. For purposes of this article, the rules adopted by

the state hospital review and planning council with respect to

subdivision three of section twenty-eight hundred one-a of this chapter

shall apply to other types of operators. Fit means that the operator or

proposed operator (a) has not been convicted of a crime or pleaded nolo

contendere to a felony charge involving murder, manslaughter, assault,

sexual abuse, theft, robbery, fraud, embezzlement, drug abuse, or sale

of drugs and (b) is not or was not subject to a state or federal

administrative order relating to fraud or embezzlement, unless the

commissioner finds that such conviction or such order does not

demonstrate a present risk or danger to patients or the public.