Alaska EMS clinicians will need fingerprint background checks as the state joins a national compact

Alaska's paramedics and EMTs will soon have to pass fingerprint-based background checks to keep their credentials, under a change that takes effect Sept. 20. It comes as Alaska joins a national compact meant to let emergency medical clinicians move and work more easily across state lines — a change with particular weight in a state where an EMT is often the only emergency responder for miles, and frequently a volunteer.

The requirement flows from House Bill 110, the law that made Alaska the 24th state in the EMS Compact and that Gov. Mike Dunleavy allowed to take effect this summer. Joining the compact requires FBI-compliant fingerprint checks, and the state's Office of Emergency Medical Services is now standing up that process. Exactly when existing clinicians must comply, and how provisional status will work in the meantime, is still being worked out — and the office is telling clinicians to wait for instructions before paying for or getting fingerprinted.

For the clinicians who will have to get checked, the practical details are these: the check runs $87 through September and $90 starting Oct. 1, reflecting a higher FBI fee, and clearance lasts five years. Unpaid volunteers at state-run or nonprofit agencies may qualify to have the fee cut to $40 — a provision that matters in the many small and rural Alaska communities whose ambulance services run on volunteers.

The compact itself is meant to ease a chronic problem: staffing emergency medical services across a vast, hard-to-reach state. By recognizing licenses across state lines, it is designed to make it easier for EMS personnel to work and deploy where they are needed.