Designating Emergency Medical Services Essential Services

     The bill declares emergency medical services as an essential service in the state and an integral part of the state's health-care infrastructure. In relation to the declaration, the bill authorizes:

•       Public and private ambulance services in the state to participate in, and receive reimbursement from, public safety-related systems coordinated by the department of personnel or the department of public safety;

       

•       The disbursement of money from the emergency medical services account in the highway users tax fund to counties and cities and counties that authorize ambulance services within their boundaries; and

       

•       The governor to direct the transfer of money from the disaster emergency fund to the emergency medical services account to finance emergency medical services needed in response to a declared disaster emergency.

     The bill also declares that emergency medical service providers, whether responding on duty or as a volunteer and regardless of location, provide essential services when providing emergency ambulance services and nonemergency ambulance services.

     The bill also updates certain definitions related to emergency medical services, including the addition of a definition of 'out-of-hospital setting services ', which term is included in and may be used interchangeably with the existing defined term 'prehospital setting' is defined to mean the furnishing of necessary health-care goods and services outside of a hospital setting but does not include prehospital setting transports .

     The bill clarifies that an off-duty emergency medical service provider is not obligated to respond to the scene of a medical emergency or provide emergency medical services.

(Note: Italicized words indicate new material added to the original summary; dashes through words indicate deletions from the original summary.)
(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)