The report is by Minnesota-based health care analyst Allan Baumgarten, who has been studying the Colorado hospital and health insurance markets for nearly 30 years. It was not released generally to the public \u2014 though Baumgarten sells the report on his website<\/a>. Baumgarten compiled the data using documents known as Medicare Cost Reports<\/a> that hospitals submit to the federal government.<\/p>\n Overall, the analysis shows the diversity of financial circumstances for Colorado hospitals, from a few large, highly profitable systems to smaller and independent hospitals just hanging on.<\/p>\n For instance, Baumgarten also looked at the finances of 29 hospitals outside the Denver metro area. Those hospitals, collectively, earned about $50 million in profit from patient care in 2024. But they saw much lower additional income \u2014 around $589 million \u2014 and their overall profits came out to about $690 million.<\/p>\n Hospitals in the Denver metro area provide significantly more care than those outside the region. Denver-area hospitals brought in about $13.9 billion in revenue from treating patients in 2024, compared with about $7.6 billion for the hospitals Baumgarten analyzed outside the metro area.<\/p>\n The report also shows the increasingly dominant position that UCHealth holds in Colorado\u2019s hospital market. The system brought in more than $6.7 billion in revenue from treating patients statewide in 2024 \u2014 more than double that of its closest competitor.<\/p>\n UCHealth turned a roughly $138 million profit treating patients, according to the report, and had total profits statewide of about $1.2 billion. The system\u2019s $689 million in profits for just its Denver-area hospitals made up more than half of total metro-area hospital profits, Baumgarten found.<\/p>\n In the Denver metro area, the AdventHealth and Intermountain Health systems lost money in 2024 \u2014 $68 million and $155 million, respectively. Denver Health also lost money, about $53 million, according to Baumgarten.<\/p>\n Hospitals owned by HCA HealthONE, such as Sky Ridge and Presbyterian St. Luke\u2019s, made the second-most in profits among Denver-area hospitals: about $617 million. But, as a for-profit, HCA HealthONE must pay taxes on that, while other major systems in Colorado, including UCHealth, are nonprofit.<\/p>\n Children\u2019s Hospital Colorado\u2019s hospitals in Aurora and Colorado Springs collectively lost more than $120 million treating patients in 2024. But other sources of revenue \u2014 Children\u2019s receives robust philanthropic support among other sources \u2014 pushed total profits above $90 million.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/St-Joseph-3.jpg\")
Presbyterian\/St. Luke\u2019s Medical Center, a hospital in the HCA HealthONE system in Denver. Photographed on Oct. 22, 2019. (John Ingold, The Colorado Sun)<\/p>\n