§4791.1. Regulation by local governing authorities of ambulance services, emergency medical services, and aspects attendant to ambulance operation

A. The legislature hereby finds and declares the following:

(1) The provision of consistently high quality emergency medical care, and any and all aspects attendant to ambulance operation to be provided within a medically acceptable response time is essential to the health, safety, and welfare of the state and its people.

(2) Privately operated ambulance services providing patient transportation service or emergency medical services fulfill a vital health and safety need within the state. The operation of such ambulance services operated within the jurisdiction of municipalities and other local governing authorities enables the state to provide the benefits of privately operated, demand-responsive ambulance services to its people.

(3) The economic viability and stability of such privately operated ambulance services are consequently a matter of statewide importance.

(4) The policy of this state is to promote medically acceptable and reliable, privately operated ambulance services, the furnishing of emergency medical services, and any and all aspects attendant to ambulance operations in order to provide the benefits of that service to its citizens. In furtherance of this policy, the legislature recognizes and affirms that the regulation of such privately operated ambulance service is an essential governmental function.

(5) The policy of this state is to provide that municipalities and other local governing authorities may regulate privately operated ambulance services, the furnishing of emergency medical services, and any and all aspects attendant to ambulance operation. It is further the policy of the state not to subject any local governing authority or its officers or members to liability under federal antitrust laws.

(6) The policy of this state is to ensure that transportation of a citizen by ground ambulance be made to the most appropriate medical facility, which may include an alternative destination to a facility other than a hospital emergency department based on a protocol consistent with the requirements of Paragraph (B)(7) of this Section that has been approved by the provider or supplier's medical director.

B. Every municipality or other local governing authority may protect the public health, safety, and welfare by licensing, controlling, and regulating by ordinance or resolution privately operated ambulance services, the furnishing of emergency medical services, and any and all aspects attendant to ambulance operations within the jurisdiction of the municipality or other local governing authority. Every municipality or other local governing authority is empowered to regulate the following:

(1) Entry into the business of providing ambulance service, including emergency medical services, within the jurisdiction of that municipality or local governing authority.

(2) Rates charged for the provision of ambulance services, in accordance with federal law relative to medical reimbursement, including emergency medical services. If the rates are set by a municipality or other local governing authority and the ambulance service has not entered into a contract for alternative reimbursement, those rates shall be the minimum allowable charge under any health insurance policy issued by any insurer regulated by the Department of Insurance.

(3) Establishment of safety and insurance requirements.

(4) Any other requirement adopted to ensure safe, reliable, and responsive ambulance service, even if such requirement is anticompetitive in effect.

(5) Limited or exclusive access by such ambulance service for the provision of emergency medical services to the 911 or other emergency communications dispatch of the municipality or other local governing authority.

(6) The establishment of safety and insurance requirements even if such requirements reduce the number of such private ambulance services that otherwise would operate within the jurisdiction of the municipality or other local governing authority.

(7)(a) The establishment of a protocol by all providers or suppliers operating ground ambulance services within the municipality to ensure the safe transport of a citizen to an alternative destination when the emergency medical services personnel has determined that the individual's condition does not meet the definition of emergency medical condition pursuant to R.S. 22:1821(D)(2)(g)(i).

(b) The protocol required by this Paragraph shall ensure all of the following:

(i) That no person is transported to an alternative destination unless he and the alternative destination both consent to the transport.

(ii) That no ambulance service transports a person to an alternative destination in which the ambulance service has a financial interest.

C. Cognizance is hereby taken of provisions in home rule charters of various parishes and municipalities which permit the regulation of ambulance services, the furnishing of emergency medical services, and any and all aspects attendant to ambulance operation within the jurisdiction of such parishes and municipalities. In connection with same, the provisions of this Section are hereby deemed and shall be interpreted and construed to be retroactive.

D. Any municipality or other local governing authority is authorized to carry out the provisions of this Section as acts of government on behalf of the state as sovereign and, to the extent the governing authority deems necessary or appropriate, is further authorized to displace competition and provide a monopoly public service. All immunity of the state of Louisiana from liability under antitrust law is hereby extended to any municipality or other governing authority acting within the scope of authority contained in this Section and, when so acting, a municipality or other local governing authority shall be presumed to be acting in furtherance of state policy.

E. Nothing in this Section shall be construed to authorize the regulation of ambulance services, emergency medical services, or ambulance operations which are located on the site of any manufacturing facility solely for use thereon.

Acts 1986, No. 560, §1, eff. July 2, 1986; Acts 2018, No. 269, §1; Acts 2018, No. 565, §1.