§ 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.