Gov. Polis signs health care bills into law

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed several health care-related bills into law on Thursday. The most talked-about bill is related to hospital transparency, while the others touch a variety of areas of health care — from behavioral health to athletic trainers.

The hospital-transparency bill requires the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing to develop a yearly report on uncompensated hospital costs and categorize how hospitals are spending money.

Rep. Susan Lontine, Chair of the House Health & Insurance Committee, named the new transparency law as one of her priority bills earlier this month. Lontine pointed out that the new law will help track how funds from the hospital provider fee are being used — a fee she said has been difficult for legislators to track.

“We’ve had trouble tracking who really needs that money,” Lontine said. “Is it being used properly? Is it being distributed to hospitals in-need properly? There’s also the issue of whether hospitals are really doing a good job being transparent about their own costs for things, and then how that ends up being charged to patients.”

Looking at hospitals’ books, Lontine said, will help the Legislature determine if they’re being efficient and if they need the support.

Gov. Polis stressed that the report will help form future policy.

“Access to this data will allow policymakers to differentiate between hospitals in different regions of the state, adopt policies that will lower costs, and track whether or not savings from reform efforts are passed on to consumers,” Gov. Polis said in a press release.

Other health care-related bills signed into law Thursday include:



HB19-1041 requires hospitals where surgeries take place and ambulatory surgical centers to put in place policies to prevent exposure to surgical smoke with “a surgical smoke evacuation system.”



Surgical smoke is defined in the bill as “the gaseous by-product produced by energy-generating devices including surgical plume, smoke plume, bio-aerosols, laser-generated airborne contaminants, or lung-damaging dust.”

HB19-1083 reclassifies the regulation of athletic trainers from registration to licensure. This doesn’t change fees or requirements for becoming a trainer.

“By re-classifying them to licensure status, we are in — in effect — granting them the portability of their liability insurance when they cross state lines.” Rep. Edie Hooton said in committee.

As is, Hooton said trainers are only required to have liability insurance that covers care within Colorado. The act would also allow for licensure reciprocity outside of state lines and enable them to participate in interstate compacts, according to Hooton.