Source: Public News Service
“Facility fees” originally meant to help struggling hospitals keep emergency room doors open 24 hours a day are now being applied to outpatient services and between 2017 and 2022, the fees cost Colorado patients and their insurers more than $13 billion, according to a new report mandated by Colorado lawmakers.
Priya Telang, communications manager for the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, said the hidden fees are being piled onto health costs many cannot afford to pay.
“Patients are not going to seek care and health outcomes are going to be worse,” Telang contended. “They are going to have to seek a higher level of more expensive care by avoiding those smaller, outpatient procedures.”