(a) The Division of Fire shall, in addition to its usual and traditional duties with regard to fires occurring within the City, furnish emergency ambulance service within the City to persons needing the same by reason of catastrophe or a contingency not related to a fire. Such additional duty shall be supervised and administered by the Chief of the Division. Such service may also be provided to persons on property owned by the City outside its territorial limits.
(b) (1) All persons shall be charged the usual, reasonable and customary charges currently prevailing in the service area, as well as considering the actual costs of providing 911 services for all basic life support services (BLS), advanced life support services (ALS I and II) and ambulance service transport mileage for both ALS and BLS transports by the City, which are as follows:
A. Basic life support transport: four hundred sixty six dollars ($466.00).
B. Advanced life support transport I: six hundred fifteen dollars ($615.00).
C. Advanced life support II: eight hundred ninety dollars ($890.00).
D. Mileage: ten dollars and twenty-one cents ($10.21).
(2) The City Manager or his or her designee is hereby authorized to adjust these charges annually after consideration the actual costs of providing these services and inflationary adjustments allowed by the Federal Government for Medicare and Medicaid patient transports. The City Manager or his or her designee is further authorized to write-off or forgive any fees that are deemed to be uncollectible.
(c) The City Manager is hereby authorized to negotiate mutual aid agreements between the City and other governmental entities in regard to emergency medical service and to establish fees therefor for responding to a request by the Division for emergency medical service or transportation, where transportation is provided from a location outside of the City to a location within the City.
(d) The fees set forth in division (b) hereof shall be charged to the person for whose benefit the service is requested.
(e) An indigent person may avoid paying such fees, or a portion thereof, by making application to the Director of Human Resources or his or her designee requesting a waiver thereof and supplying proof of indigency. The Director shall establish rules and procedures for waiving fees, or a portion thereof, for indigent persons for such service and shall submit such rules and procedures to the City Manager for approval at the earliest possible date.
(Ord. O96-142, passed 12-17-1996; Am. Ord. O2003-104, passed 8-5-2003; Am. Ord. O2004-82, passed 9-21-2004)