HB 25-1288

HB 25-1288, also known as Support for Federally Qualified Health Centers, allows health centers in Colorado to create separate companies that can offer medical services on a fee-for-service basis. This means these centers can receive payments directly from patients or insurance companies for specific services without affecting their regular funding. The bill ensures that any extra money earned by these new companies goes back to the main health center and does not impact how much they get reimbursed through other programs. Since it has been signed into law, federally qualified health centers in Colorado can now set up these separate entities to provide more flexible payment options for their services.

Official Summary

The act authorizes the department of health care policy and financing (HCPF) to seek and accept gifts from private or public sources for the primary care fund. The act authorizes a federally qualified health center (FQHC) to establish a separate subsidiary company for the purpose of providing fee-for-service services outside of the FQHC's standard cost report if the subsidiary is providing fee-for-service services that have historically been provided and reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis and if HCPF determines that the subsidiary's reimbursements would be budget neutral. Upon receiving any necessary federal authorization, HCPF is required to reimburse a subsidiary of an FQHC on a fee-for-service basis for services that are eligible for fee-for-service reimbursement. A subsidiary that receives reimbursement is authorized to pass through money received from the reimbursement directly to the FQHC operating as the subsidiary's parent corporation. Services reimbursed to an FQHC's subsidiary are excluded from the FQHC's cost report. The act requires HCPF to exclude all costs associated with a subsidiary company from the calculation of a FQHC's reimbursement rates and requires a FQHC that establishes a separate subsidiary company to include the costs associated with the subsidiary in its cost report that is necessary to calculate reimbursement rates. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)

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