Last week, the Colorado Supreme Court denied a challenge of the state’s provider fees. The provider fees upheld are known as Colorado Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise (CHASE) fees.
This funding is critical to the ability to meet the health coverage needs of Coloradans who rely on Colorado Medicaid as well as the rural hospitals and providers who serve them. The court decision ensures efforts to support Coloradans in need of health care.
The CHASE fee is essential as Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing programs are covering 1.5 million Coloradans now, and about one-third of them are funded and served through the CHASE fee. Specifically, these fees support:
-Coverage expansions now serving more than 500,000 Coloradans, including:
- Pregnant women and children under Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+),
- Colorado Medicaid buy-in programs for children and working adults with disabilities,
- Continuous 12 months of Medicaid eligibility for children, once eligible, and
- Medicaid expansion covering parents and adults without children.
-Federal subsidies to hospitals that increase average Medicaid reimbursements from $0.54 on a dollar of costs prior to the institution of the provider fee in 2009 to approximately $0.75 cents on the dollar today, while helping to stabilize our rural hospitals.
CHASE fees are also core to the Hospital Transformation Program (HTP), which rewards hospitals through value-based payments for providing higher quality and more affordable care to the Coloradans they serve.
Read more information on the Colorado Hospital Provider Fees.