University of Colorado Hospital Sees Fewer Poor Patients, Faces Funding Loss.

Byline: Allison Sherry

Dec. 17--University of Colorado Hospital stands to lose more than half a million dollars in government funding next year because administrators have increasingly limited the number of poor people the hospital sees.

Over the past two years, the number of indigent patients University saw dropped 25 percent, new state and hospital records show. The drop comes despite millions more in government money University received to treat that population.

State officials plan to recommend today that legislators adopt a new formula to determine how much government money hospitals get to treat the poor. The decrease in the number of indigent patients University has seen sparked the change, said Marilyn Golden, director of operations and the finance office at the state Department of Health Care Policy and Finance.

"Clearly we recognize there are inequities in the distribution of money," Golden said. "It was the University experience, in part, that helped analyze that for us."

Golden declined to confirm exactly how much University and other Colorado hospitals stand to lose or gain under the new formula until numbers are officially released today, but a source familiar with the plan said University would lose more than $500,000.

Denver Health Medical Center, the other metro-area hospital that receives substantial money to treat the indigent, could pick up money under the new formula, which will more closely tie funding to the number of indigent patients a hospital sees.

Denver Health received $56.1 …