§ 68-140-316 — Application of part

(a) This part applies to each person providing emergency medical services within the state. The board shall use all reasonable and lawful means to ensure that necessary emergency medical services are provided to all patients in the state, as required for the public health and safety. (b) This part does not apply to the following: (1) The occasional use of a privately or publicly owned vehicle not ordinarily used in the business of transporting persons who are sick, injured, wounded or otherwise incapacitated or helpless, and/or operating under the Good Samaritan Law, codified in § 63-6-218 , in the performance of a lifesaving act; (2) A vehicle rendering services as an ambulance in case of a major scheduled public event, catastrophe or emergency when ambulances with permits based in the localities of the major scheduled public event, catastrophe or emergency are insufficient to render the services required; (3) Vehicles owned or operated by rescue squads, as defined by the board by rule and regulation, chartered by the state as corporations not for profit or otherwise existing as nonprofit associations which vehicles are not regularly used to transport sick, injured or otherwise incapacitated or helpless persons, except as a part of rescue operations; or (4) Any ambulance service licensed in another state that does not regularly transport in this state when called in for transfer upon referral by any physician, health care facility, or ambulance service licensed in this state. A service licensed in another jurisdiction and called by a county or municipality no more than four (4) times in a calendar year for major scheduled public events shall not be deemed to be engaged in regular transportation in this state. (c) For purposes of this part, a major scheduled public event shall be one for which the anticipated attendance is more than one hundred thousand (100,000) persons, or two-thirds (2/3) of the population of the county in which such public event is held, whichever is greater. (d) Any emergency medical services agency licensed in another state that is requested to render emergency medical services at a major scheduled public event in Tennessee pursuant to this section and § 68-140-306 shall provide, upon request of the emergency medical services board, evidence that an emergency medical services agency licensed in Tennessee has granted permission for the emergency medical services agency licensed in another state to operate at the event under such Tennessee agency's license, and has accepted in writing responsibility for verifying the following relative to the emergency medical services agency licensed in another state: (1) Such agency's current license; (2) The current licensure status of all personnel of such agency; (3) That all ambulances that may be used at such major scheduled public event are currently certified for use in the state in which such agency is licensed; and (4) That a physician licensed in Tennessee has accepted in writing responsibility for acting as medical director for such agency and that such physician or such physician's designee, who is also a physician licensed in Tennessee, will participate as medical director for such agency at the major scheduled public event.

Legislative History

Acts 1983, ch. 440, §§ 18, 24; 1986, ch. 586, § 1; T.C.A., § 68-39-516; Acts 1992, ch. 796, § 8; 2001, ch. 29, §§ 1 - 3; 2002, ch. 516, §§ 1, 3; T.C.A., §68-140-316.