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C.R.S.A. § 25-3-705

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Health care charge transparency-hospital charge report

The Commissioner of Insurance must work with the Colorado Hospital Association to develop a consumer friendly resource for hospital charges.  Each hospital in the state must submit a report to  the Hospital Association to determine the charges for the 25 most common inpatient diagnostic-related groups.  Hospitals that do not use diagnostic-related groups are exempt from the reporting requirements.  The Commissioner will work with the  Hospital Association to incorporate the information into a website.  The Hospital Association must submit an implementation plan to the Commissioner, which should take into account methods for hospital reporting, standards for verification and comparability of hospital charges, and format for making charges public.  The Hospital Association must make the information reported available on the website by August each year.  The information to be reported by the hospitals includes:

  • Volume of cases by diagnostic-related groups required to be reported by the hospitals;
  • Rank by volume of the top 25 diagnostic-related groups required to be reported by the hospitals;
  • Mean charge for each of the top 25 diagnostic-related groups with more than 10 occurrences by hospital;
  • Case severity rating by hospital by diagnostic-related group;
  • A general disclaimer about hospital and patient variations that affect the actual charges to patients.

Each hospital must be given 30 days to examine the data before it is posted on the website.  The Commissioner of Insurance must approve the publication of the disclosed charge data on the website.  The information on the website must be designed to allow consumers to search and compare hospitals and must include additional information consumers may need.  The Commissioner of Insurance must make sure that a link to the website is available on the Division of Insurance website.  The Division of Insurance must review the website’s information to ensure that the site is consumer-friendly.  The Hospital Association or hospital employees must not be held liable due to performance information posted on the website.


Current as of June 2015