Colorado Hospital Liens, Discounted Care & Medical Debt
When a hospital lien shows up after a crash, it can feel like you’re being hit twice.
Colorado law gives hospitals powerful tools to collect—but it also gives patients real protections that many people never hear about.
This page explains, in plain language:
What a Colorado hospital lien is
Your rights under Hospital Discounted Care (HDC)
How price-transparency rules interact with hospital collections
When a lien or collection effort may be improper or illegal
How Federal Claims Advisors is mapping these patterns for public-interest and class-type cases
Important: This page is for general information only, not legal advice for your specific situation. Reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship.
1. What is a hospital lien in Colorado?
A hospital lien is a legal claim by the hospital against money you might recover from someone who injured you (usually their auto-insurance company) for the reasonable and necessary cost of your hospital care.
In plain terms:
You are injured in a crash and treated at a hospital.
Later there is a settlement or judgment against the at-fault driver (or another responsible party).
The hospital may claim a lien so it can be paid out of that money.
But hospitals must follow specific rules and limits.
Hospitals are supposed to bill insurance first
Hospitals are generally expected to bill Medicare or other primary health insurance first when those coverages exist.
If a hospital skips straight to a lien without properly billing identified insurance or primary medical payers, that can be a red flag.
Notice and timing requirements
To protect a lien, hospitals must follow notice and timing requirements, such as:
Giving written notice of the lien to specific parties, and
Complying with deadlines and filing procedures.
If those requirements are not followed, the lien may be defective.
Double-damages for illegal liens
Colorado law allows an injured person who is subjected to a lien that violates the statute to sue in district court for up to two times the amount of the lien, plus other relief.
In other words:
If a hospital asserts a lien that doesn’t follow the law, the injured person may have a claim not only to invalidate the lien, but also to recover money based on the hospital’s attempted overreach.
2. Hospital Discounted Care (HDC): protections for low-income patients
Colorado’s Hospital Discounted Care law (often called “HDC”) significantly expanded protections for low-income patients treated at Colorado hospitals and freestanding emergency departments.
Who generally qualifies?
In broad terms, HDC may apply to:
Uninsured patients, and some underinsured patients, and
Households at or below a set percentage of the Federal Poverty Guidelines (commonly discussed as around 250% FPL, though details can change over time).
You do not need to be a U.S. citizen to potentially qualify.
What HDC requires hospitals to do
Under HDC, hospitals must:
Screen patients for eligibility for discounted care when they appear likely to qualify.
Limit what eligible patients can be billed for medically necessary hospital and ER services, based on state-approved discounted schedules.
Offer reasonable payment plans, often capping monthly payments at a percentage of household income.
In some circumstances, forgive remaining balances after a defined time period of good-faith payments.
Communicate clearly, in plain language and in the patient’s preferred language where required, about discounted-care options.
Collections are limited under HDC
HDC also restricts what hospitals and their collection agents can do. In general:
Hospitals should not send patients to collections or sue on hospital debt until they have screened for and offered discounted care where required.
If a hospital ignores HDC obligations and moves straight to collections or aggressive billing, that may violate Colorado law.
3. Price transparency and limits on collection
Colorado has also tied hospital collection rights to price transparency.
Hospitals are required under federal rules to post standard charges and consumer-friendly price information online. Colorado law adds that if a hospital is not in material compliance with price-transparency requirements, the hospital (and its collectors) may be restricted from:
Referring certain debts to collections,
Suing the patient to collect, or
Reporting that debt to credit agencies.
In some situations, attempts to collect such a debt can trigger:
Penalties equal to the amount of the debt,
Refunds of amounts already paid, and
Responsibility for the patient’s attorney fees and costs.
In other words:
Price transparency is not just a “nice to have” website feature. In Colorado, it can affect whether a hospital is legally allowed to collect on certain debts at all.
4. Other Colorado protections that may matter
This page can’t list every law that might apply, but two additional concepts often intersect with hospital liens and medical debt.
The “made whole” principle
Colorado law is generally protective of injured people who have not been fully compensated. Insurance companies usually cannot take back funds from an injured person (through reimbursement or subrogation) until that person has been fully compensated for all damages.
While this rule applies primarily to insurance, not hospital liens, it affects how settlements and reimbursements are evaluated and divided.
Priority of attorney liens
Colorado law also gives attorneys in personal-injury cases a lien for their fees. That lien often has priority over hospital liens.
This matters when settlement amounts are limited and multiple claims are chasing the same dollars.
5. Red flags that your hospital lien or bill may be improper
Every situation is unique, but here are warning signs that deserve closer attention:
You were never told about Hospital Discounted Care or screened for discounted care, even though you were uninsured or your income is modest.
The hospital went straight to collections, lawsuits, or wage-garnishment threats without clearly explaining your discounted-care rights.
A hospital lien was recorded before the hospital properly billed Medicare or other primary health insurance that clearly existed.
You receive conflicting explanations from the hospital or collector about what you owe, what discounts you might qualify for, or why your auto-insurance or MedPay funds were taken.
The amounts claimed under the lien seem wildly higher than in-network rates or any estimates you were given.
When you ask about discounted care or price transparency, you are brushed off or told that the law does not apply to you without a clear explanation.
Seeing one of these does not automatically mean your rights were violated—but multiple red flags together may indicate serious legal or regulatory issues.
6. What Federal Claims Advisors is doing
Federal Claims Advisors, LLC, working alongside the Law Office of Christopher M. Sullivan, Esq., is not a volume personal-injury firm.
We are building a public-interest docket focused on:
Patterns of Colorado hospital liens and collection practices that appear inconsistent with Hospital Discounted Care and price-transparency rules.
The role of outsourced collection firms and hospital “business office” partners in pushing patients into long-term medical debt.
How auto-insurance practices, MedPay, and hospital billing interact in ways that systematically disadvantage crash victims and low-income patients.
Our goals include:
Documenting statewide patterns in lien filings, billing, and collections.
Identifying cases that may be suitable for class actions or other impact litigation.
Supporting media, academic, and policy work that exposes how these systems function in real life.
We generally do not accept standard, one-off individual cases.
We are looking for recurring patterns that can support systemic relief.
7. Who we want to hear from
If any of the following sound like your experience in Colorado, we are interested in hearing your story:
You were treated at a Colorado hospital after a crash and later discovered a hospital lien on your auto-injury settlement or claim.
You were never told about Hospital Discounted Care or discounted-care options, even though you were uninsured or having difficulty paying.
A hospital or collection company has threatened lawsuits, wage garnishment, or credit reporting for hospital bills that seem inflated or confusing.
Your MedPay or auto-insurance settlement was largely consumed by hospital charges or liens, leaving you with little or nothing after a serious injury.
Even if we cannot represent you individually, your documents and story may help illuminate the larger system affecting thousands of people.
8. What to gather before contacting us
If you choose to reach out, it helps to gather:
Copies of any hospital bills, itemized statements, or “summaries of charges.”
Any hospital lien notices, filings, or letters referencing a lien.
Letters or emails from collection agencies or hospital “business office” departments.
Auto-insurance, MedPay, or health-insurance explanation of benefits (EOBs) related to your crash or hospital stay.
The dates of your hospital care and, if possible, the date any lien was recorded.
You can use the contact form on this site or email us at the address listed on our Contact page.
9. Important disclaimers
This page is general information about Colorado hospital liens, discounted care, and medical debt. It is not legal advice.
Laws and regulations change, and how they apply depends on the specific facts of your situation.
Contacting Federal Claims Advisors or the Law Office of Christopher M. Sullivan, Esq. does not create an attorney–client relationship unless and until a written agreement is signed.
If you are facing urgent deadlines, collection lawsuits, or threats of garnishment, you should speak directly with a lawyer of your choosing as soon as possible.