The legislature finds that the payments to private emergency ambulance service providers for transports for medicaid recipients have not been increased since 2004, resulting in a loss for carriers who provide this service. This has resulted in the shifting of cost of medicaid transports to other payers.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide for a quality assurance fee for specified providers of emergency ambulance services as referenced in 42 C.F.R. Sec. 433.56, which will be used to add on to base funding from all other sources, thereby supporting additional medicaid payments to nonpublic and nonfederal providers of emergency ambulance services as specified in this chapter.

Contingent expiration date—2020 c 354: See RCW 74.70.100(4)(b).