Overview
Senate Bill 23-298 allows certain frontier and rural hospitals to enter into collaboration agreements. The purpose of these collaboration agreements is to improve the quality of, increase access to, and reduce costs of health care services in rural and frontier communities, while also providing protection from certain antitrust scrutiny that would generally impede these hospitals from working collaboratively.
The hospital collaboration agreements will initially be reviewed by the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing and, if applicable, the Division of Insurance. The proposals will be referred to the Attorney General upon review that the proposed collaborative activities will result in cost savings, improve efficiencies, or expand access to health care services in frontier or rural communities. Additionally, the Attorney General’s Office will determine that the benefits from the collaborative activities are not outweighed by any anticompetitive harm that may arise from said activities.
Approved hospital collaborative agreements may be reviewed annually to ensure that the agreement's outcomes are consistent with what was originally proposed.
Qualification and Application
The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing is accepting applications on a rolling basis. To apply, qualified frontier and rural hospitals will submit their Hospital Collaboration Agreement Application, their collaboration agreement proposal, along with all supporting documents to Health Care Policy and Financing and, if applicable, the Division of Insurance by emailing HCPF_HospitalCollaborationAgreements@state.co.us. Below are links to the application and the appendix:
Annual reviews may be initiated by Health Care Policy and Financing one year from the approval date.
Reference
Part 10 to Article 1 of Title 25.5, C.R.S., is the statute allowing for hospitals to enter into collaboration agreements, which was enacted via the adoption of Senate Bill 23-298.
Contact Us
Please email us with any questions at HCPF_HospitalCollaborationAgreements@state.co.us.
The Department will contact providers through email. Please sign-up for the email list. To complete the sign-up process, enter your contact information and select the Rural Hospital Stakeholder box.