§ 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.