(1) All verified trauma centers shall be considered eligible to receive state funding when state funds are specifically appropriated for state-sponsored trauma centers in the General Appropriations Act. Effective July 1, 2010, the department shall make payments from the Emergency Medical Services Trust Fund under s. 20.435 to the trauma centers. Payments shall be in equal amounts for the trauma centers approved by the department as of July 1 of the fiscal year in which funding is appropriated. In the event a trauma center does not maintain its status as a trauma center for any state fiscal year in which such funding is appropriated, the trauma center shall repay the state for the portion of the year during which it was not a trauma center.
(2) Trauma centers eligible to receive distributions from the Emergency Medical Services Trust Fund under s. 20.435 in accordance with subsection (1) may request that such funds be used as intergovernmental transfer funds in the Medicaid program.
(3) In order to receive state funding, a hospital must be a verified trauma center and shall:
(a) Agree to conform to all departmental requirements as provided by rule to assure high-quality trauma services.
(b) Agree to report trauma data to the National Trauma Data Bank.
(c) Agree to accept all trauma patients, regardless of ability to pay, on a functional space-available basis.
(4) A trauma center that fails to comply with any of the conditions listed in subsection (3) or the applicable rules of the department may not receive payments under this section for the period in which it was not in compliance.
History.—ss. 7, 15, ch. 90-284; s. 79, ch. 91-282; s. 92, ch. 92-33; ss. 39, 98, ch. 92-289; s. 19, ch. 98-89; s. 8, ch. 2004-259; s. 10, ch. 2010-161; s. 7, ch. 2018-66.
1Note.—Section 14, ch. 2018-66, provides that “[i]f the provisions of this act relating to s. 395.4025(16), Florida Statutes, are held to be invalid or inoperative for any reason, the remaining provisions of this act shall be deemed to be void and of no effect, it being the legislative intent that this act as a whole would not have been adopted had any provision of the act not been included.”
