BLS is basic life support, the provider-level CPR credential taught by the American Heart Association and the Red Cross. It's where clinical hiring starts. A dentist's office asks for the same card an intensive care unit does.

Median Healthcare Salarywith BLS / CPR

10%$18.50/hr

median$46.03/hr

90%$99.14/hr

Top Median Salary by Statewith BLS / CPR

District of Columbia$79.19/hr
New Jersey$74.68/hr
Maryland$74.68/hr
Connecticut$72.59/hr
Massachusetts$70.18/hr

What moves an ambulance run up a tier

An EMS ad using these letters may be naming a truck. Medicare's ground tiers start at basic life support, and that definition carries its own crew: at least 2 people who meet the requirements of state and local law where the service is furnished, at least one of them certified as a minimum at the EMT-Basic level and legally authorized to operate all the lifesaving and life-sustaining equipment on board. The step up to ALS1 turns on what happened during the trip, an assessment by ALS personnel or one ALS intervention. ALS2 asks for at least 3 medications by intravenous push or bolus or by continuous infusion, excluding crystalloid, hypotonic, isotonic and hypertonic solutions such as dextrose, normal saline and Ringer's lactate, or one procedure off a listed set (42 CFR 414.605).

Your questions about BLS certified jobs, answered

Who decides that a job needs BLS?: It comes from the employer, and sometimes from a state rule attached to a permit. The federal side can be looser than a posting sounds: a Medicare-participating ambulatory surgery center has to have personnel trained in the use of emergency equipment and in cardiopulmonary resuscitation available whenever there's a patient in the ASC (42 CFR 416.44(e)), and it names no card. Where BLS is the employer's own requirement, so is the date it has to be in hand, which is worth settling while you're still negotiating.
Does BLS cover children, or is that a separate card?: One BLS course covers all 3 age groups. Under the 2025 pediatric guidelines the child range runs from about 1 year to puberty and the infant range covers under about a year, newborns excluded, and the provider course teaches all of it alongside adult resuscitation. So a pediatric office asking for BLS is asking for this card. The advanced pediatric course is a separate credential (PALS), and births have a third (NRP).
How does an employer check a BLS card?: AHA eCards are verified on the association's own site, by entering the code or scanning the QR code on the card. A card the student never claimed returns nothing there, which is enough to hold up credentialing, so claim it when the email arrives and keep the code with your application documents.