Hospital Financial Transparency Measures

The bill requires the department of health care policy and financing (department), in consultation with the Colorado healthcare affordability and sustainability enterprise board, to develop and prepare an annual report detailing uncompensated hospital costs and the different categories of expenditures made by general hospitals in the state (hospital expenditure report). In compiling the hospital expenditure report, the department shall use publicly available data sources whenever possible. Each general hospital in the state is required to make available to the department certain information, including:

• Hospital cost reports submitted to the federal centers for medicare and medicaid services;
• Annual audited financial statements; except that, if a hospital is part of a consolidated or combined group, the hospital may submit a consolidated or combined financial statement if the group's statement separately identifies the information for each of the group's licensed hospitals;
• Utilization and staffing information and standard units of measure; and
• Information accessed through a secure, online data collection and reporting system that provides a central location for the collection and analysis of hospital utilization and financial data.

The hospital expenditure report must include, but not be limited to:

• A description of the methods of analysis and definitions of report components by payer group;
• Uncompensated care costs by payer group; and
• The percentage that different categories of expenses contribute to overall expenses of hospitals.

The department is required to submit the hospital expenditure report to the governor, specified committees of the general assembly, and the medical services board in the department. The department is also directed to post the hospital expenditure report on the department's website.

(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)