Authority and scope
Check the facility type and concern
CMS lists Colorado’s health-facility complaint destination and separately identifies home-health/hospice phone contacts. Current state filing instructions could not be established. Confirm the responsible unit for a hospital, surgery/outpatient center or nursing home. Assisted-living/adult residential and behavioral/substance-use program authorities and filing requirements remain unverified; do not assume the general health-facility route covers all of them.
Supporting guidance: CMS: Colorado survey contacts ↗
Match the route to the facility type
Healthcare-facility survey concerns
CMS-listed CDPHE entry; current hospital, nursing and outpatient instructions unverified.
Open this official route ↗Home health and hospice
Specialized contact numbers confirmed by CMS; actual submission requirements limited.
Open this official route ↗Assisted living and behavioral/substance-use settings
Ask Colorado’s listed contact for the appropriate authority; separate routes remain unverified.
Open this official route ↗Confirm the filing instructions
- Use the CMS-listed Colorado complaint destination below, or ask the listed contact at 800-842-8826 for the correct unit. For home health/hospice, CMS also lists 303-692-2910.
- Identify the facility’s exact name, address and service type before requesting instructions. Ask whether a concern about the building/operator, a care agency working there or an individual practitioner needs a separate complaint.
- Obtain the current accepted submission method and form. Online-account requirements, paper/email/fax alternatives, signatures, supporting attachments and representative-consent rules could not be verified.
- Prepare dated events, the patient or resident involved, staff and witness names if known, and relevant supporting copies. Ask how to provide sensitive health records, particularly if the patient is another adult or a child. These are preparation suggestions rather than confirmed Colorado form requirements.
- For assisted living or a behavioral/substance-use program, ask for the specific state licensing authority and complaint destination. Keep the jurisdiction answer and, after filing, request a receipt or reference number.
Supporting guidance: CMS: Colorado survey contacts ↗
What this route may not provide
The directory confirms the survey contact but does not establish every Colorado state license, facility exemption or program responsibility. Federal certification and state-only residential licensing should be checked separately. Coverage of individual offices and federal, tribal or state-operated facilities was not established. Neither were financial remedies or ordinary billing, insurance and privacy dispute boundaries.
Do not guess about confidentiality
Anonymous reporting, confidentiality, identity disclosure to the facility and public-record treatment were not established. Request the applicable unit’s policy before sending records. Do not infer a promise of identity protection from the general agency website or a survey contact listing.
Ask promptly; filing deadline unverified
A filing deadline was not established by this check; ask promptly. No investigation-completion estimate was verified. A facility’s own incident-reporting duties are separate from consumer filing time limits.
What may happen after filing
This guide supplies an authority starting point. Ask the appropriate Colorado unit how it screens and investigates complaints, what regulatory responses are available, whether complainants receive results and how to submit additional information. No specific outcome is assured.
Prepare a reviewable submission
State the concern you want reviewed, give a short chronology and factual consequences, and explain your request. Keep supporting records and follow the receiving authority’s instructions before attaching or sending them.
Other facility processes to consider
These processes have different purposes. The national guidance below does not establish this state’s filing requirements or change the verification level shown above.
Hospital grievance
For hospitals covered by CMS hospital Conditions of Participation, ask for the grievance contact and written procedure. The hospital must specify response timeframes and give a written decision describing its contact, investigation, results and completion date. These are hospital rules, not a single rule for every facility. You may contact the responsible State Survey Agency without first completing the hospital process.
Supporting guidance: CMS: hospital grievance guidance ↗
State oversight
Match external oversight to the facility type and license. State Survey Agencies help CMS assess federal compliance; state licensing may cover different settings. Confirm jurisdiction rather than assuming one contact handles every clinic or residential program.
Supporting guidance: CMS: State Survey Agency contacts ↗
Medicare quality review and appeals
People with Medicare can ask their Medicare quality-review organization (BFCC-QIO) about eligible quality-of-care concerns. A complaint is different from a fast appeal when discharge or covered services may be ending too soon. Follow the Important Message from Medicare or Notice of Medicare Non-Coverage immediately; the notice identifies the contact and deadline. An inpatient-to-observation status change may also have a separate fast-appeal route; ask for its notice and current instructions. A routine grievance does not substitute for an appeal.
Supporting guidance: Medicare: fast appeals and BFCC-QIO help ↗
Long-term-care advocacy
Long-Term Care Ombudsmen advocate for residents of nursing homes, assisted living and similar residential settings. They help resolve concerns according to the resident’s wishes; they are not licensing enforcement. Identity disclosure generally requires informed consent, with court-order and specified incapacity exceptions. Ask how resident, representative and complainant consent applies.
Supporting guidance: ACL: Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program ↗45 CFR 1324: Long-Term Care Ombudsman rules ↗
National sources and scope
CMS: hospital grievance guidance ↗
Hospital participation scope and tags A-0118, A-0121–A-0123: written/verbal grievances, response policy, written decision and direct state-agency access. Relevant passages only; not a rule for every facility.
Source checked: September 30, 2026
CMS: State Survey Agency contacts ↗
Federal participation oversight and quality complaint directory; confirm facility-type jurisdiction and state licensing separately.
Source checked: September 30, 2026
Medicare: fast appeals and BFCC-QIO help ↗
Eligible care-ending/discharge and inpatient-to-observation status-change appeals, notice-specific timing and costs; separate quality-of-care help for Medicare-covered services. Current page text read.
Source checked: September 30, 2026
ACL: Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program ↗
Resident advocacy in nursing homes, assisted living, board-and-care and similar residential care; state-program locator.
Source checked: September 19, 2026
45 CFR 1324: Long-Term Care Ombudsman rules ↗
Sections 1324.11(e)(3) and 1324.19: resident direction, consent, complainant/resident identity protection, court orders and limited incapacity exceptions; distinct from regulatory enforcement. Current through September 17, 2026 when checked.
Source checked: September 19, 2026
Sources and scope
Some agency-linked forms and destinations could not be read. Source-check dates apply to the material listed below; they do not establish that every linked portal was inspected or a complaint submitted.
CMS: Colorado survey contacts ↗
Colorado health-facility destination and general/home-health/hospice contact numbers; not state filing instructions.
Source checked: September 30, 2026
Latest guide source check: September 30, 2026. Individual sources retain their own check dates. This records a review of the linked material, not a decision about your case. No clinical or legal reviewer is identified for this guide. Confirm current instructions with the receiving authority.