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DENVER, CO - The House Health & Insurance Committee today passed bipartisan legislation to increase transparency in hospital reporting requirements. The bill passed by a vote of 11-0.
“This legislation will help us understand how we can craft cost saving measures by understanding where price increases are coming from and how money is being transferred between entities and spent,” said Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, D-Lakewood. “By improving hospital reporting requirements, we’ll have a more thorough understanding of Colorado hospitals’ cash flow so we can continue to drive down health care costs for consumers and businesses.”
HB23-1226, also sponsored by Representative Matt Soper, builds off of hospital transparency legislation also carried by Representative Chris deGruy Kennedy in 2019 to bolster price transparency and reduce health care costs. Under HB23-1226, hospitals would have to disclose detailed revenue and expenditure streams, including data from previous years, for the hospital expenditure report, which would be renamed to the hospital transparency report under this bill. Hospitals would also have to disclose investments and other assets to and from related parties, including the hospital’s parent organization, and whether the transfers were made within or outside Colorado.
This would identify underlying drivers of high hospital costs and strengthen data collection on the financial health and performance of Colorado hospitals. The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing would have the power to apply corrective action plans or fines to hospitals that do not comply with data collection procedures.
Hospitals would also be required to provide patients with a detailed list of billed services and the associated charges and disclose the patient’s right to receive more detailed information about the billed services.