Rural Reckoning | Beset by constant budget pressures, rural hospitals serve patients — and local economies

Colorado’s rural hospitals are teetering on the edge of financial collapse, burdened by rising costs, shrinking reimbursements and a growing list of state and federal regulations, according to the Colorado Hospital Association.

In Colorado, half of the 88 acute care hospitals are in rural or frontier counties.

The difference between rural and frontier healthcare depends on population density. A rural county in healthcare is defined as a non-metropolitan area that does not contain a city with a population of more than 50,000 people. A frontier county has a population density of six or fewer people per square mile.

Frontier counties represent the most sparsely populated areas within the broader category of rural counties, according to the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Fina