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(Colorado News Connection) "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.

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"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."

Telang noted the state's critical access hospitals, which are more likely to experience financial struggles, are not responsible for the bulk of fees charged. The report showed 80 percent of fees went to 10 of the state's largest hospital groups. UC Health, which took in one-third of all fees, is urging lawmakers not to act on the report's findings. UC Heath said there was not enough time, data or participation from stakeholders for it to be reliable.

Telang noted facility fees, which are separate from fees charged for doctor care, have proliferated in recent years as hospitals consolidate and gain more marketplace power.

"As we see these huge hospital systems buying up smaller providers and expanding their reach, we're going to see more of these facility fees being charged, because they can," Telang asserted.

UC Health, which has $6 billion in reserves, has grown from owning five hospitals to 14 across Colorado in the past decade. Telang believes action at the state and federal level is needed to protect consumers.

"It's our lawmakers' duty to help their constituents not be saddled with immense medical debt that is crushing and they can't afford," Telang stressed.