SB23-298 Summary

• Authorizes frontier and rural hospitals with fewer than 50 beds (county public hospitals, health service districts, and hospital affiliates) to enter into collaborative agreements for joint activities including purchasing, staffing, shared services, and data analytics.

• Establishes a review process requiring hospitals to submit proposed collaborative agreements to the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing and Division of Insurance for preliminary approval, then to the Attorney General to ensure benefits outweigh anticompetitive harm.

• Prohibits collaborative agreements that set reimbursement rates, divide markets for healthcare services among hospitals, or reduce employee wages through staffing arrangements.

• Provides state action immunity from federal and state antitrust laws for approved collaborative agreements that improve quality, increase access, or reduce costs in rural and frontier communities.

• Appropriates $30,260 from the healthcare affordability and sustainability fee cash fund for the 2023-24 fiscal year to support implementation, with anticipated $30,259 in federal matching funds.