03 Aug 2021

Colorado: Hospital’s Act of Invoicing Injured Employee Results in Fine, But Not as a “Continuing” Offense

Where a hospital sent an injured worker eight separate invoices for charges related to his work-related injuries and, on two additional occasions, send invoices to a collection agency in an effort to collect monies owed for the worker’s treatment, it was liable for a $750 penalty for each instance, held a Colorado appellate court. The hospital could not, however, be fined the $750 on a daily basis as an ongoing, “continuing” violation, held the court. The court reasoned that once a bill was generated and sent, the violative deed had been committed and could not be undone. Sending a bill to an injured worker for covered care could not be cured because the bill could not be “unsent.” The violation occurred, therefore, on each occasion the invoice was sent, not on a daily basis.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law(LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Delta Cty. Mem. Hosp. v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office of Colo., 2021 COA 84, 2021 Colo. App. LEXIS 865 (June 17, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 135.02.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see