Colorado

Grounds stated in the sources

6 CCR 1011-1 Chapter 5, section 15.6(B): "A resident shall not be transferred or discharged unless:" — "The transfer or discharge is necessary for the resident's welfare."; "The transfer or discharge is only for medical reasons."; "The transfer or discharge is necessary to preserve the welfare of other residents, or"; "The resident has failed to pay for (or to have paid under Medicaid or Medicare) a stay at the facility." For the first three, a certified facility "must also demonstrate that the resident's needs cannot be met in the facility", and the rule requires "assessment and reasonable intervention prior to determining the need for the transfer or discharge." The chapter also states the resident's right "not to be transferred or discharged for raising concerns or complaints."

Notice stated in the sources

Section 15.6(E): "Reasonable advance notice means notice in writing at least 30 days before the transfer or discharge except in the following circumstances in which the professional staff determines there is an emergency, in which case the notice must be made as soon as practicable before the transfer or discharge:" — the safety or the health of residents being endangered, or where "An immediate transfer or discharge is required by the resident's urgent medical needs." The written notice must state the reason, the effective date, "The location to which the resident is transferred or discharged,", "The grievance procedure, and" a block of text the rule prints verbatim. A room change inside the facility has its own clock: written notice "to be received at least five calendar days before such move, including an explanation of their right to appeal."

Hearing office in these sources

A four-step ladder, printed on the face of the notice as text the facility must reproduce: "you must appeal to _________ (staff designee) within 14 calendar days."; then "you may appeal to the nursing care facility's grievance committee within 10 calendar days of receipt of the decision of the staff designee."; then "you may appeal to the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment within 10 calendar days of receipt of the grievance committee decision."; and finally, "If you are not satisfied with the Executive Director's decision, you have 30 calendar days to request that the Department of Public Health and Environment set the matter for an administrative hearing." No move may happen until the notice period expires and "The time for filing a grievance or appeal has expired, or" the grievance or appeal "has been resolved." The rule leaves the staff designee's name and the division's address and telephone number as blanks for the facility to fill.

Ombudsman in these sources

The Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, in the Colorado Department of Human Services, which publishes: "To speak with a long-term care ombudsman, visit the Colorado Long-Term Care Program website or call 303.862.3524." The department's own address is "1575 Sherman St. Denver, CO 80203" with "303-866-5700". The rule writes the office into the process: for a certified facility, a copy of the notice, including the appeal rights and ombudsman contact information, "shall also be sent to the state and local Long-Term Care Ombudsman at the same time it is sent to the resident or as soon as the determination is made that the transfer or discharge is involuntary."

Sources last checked

2026-08-30

Reproduced from the agencies' own pages and documents quoted below — potentially relevant official sources, not a determination that any notice, ground, or deadline applies to any situation.

Lede

This page assembles what Colorado's own publishers state about transfer and discharge from a nursing care facility. It is a baseline page: the docket rows and the source map are built; the grounds section and the published-process section are not yet written, as the change log records. The fullest single source is section 15.6 of 6 CCR 1011-1 Chapter 5, the health department's standards for nursing care facilities, which states the grounds, the thirty-day notice and its emergency exceptions, the notice's required contents, the appeal ladder, the five-day notice for a room change, and the bar on moving anyone while an appeal is open. Colorado's vocabulary distinguishes three things the rule defines separately: a discharge moves a resident to a non-institutional setting, a transfer to another institutional setting, and a room change from one room to another.

Colorado's appeal is unusual in shape. Three of its four steps happen inside the facility or at the department's executive director's desk before anything resembling a hearing: fourteen days to a staff designee, ten to the facility's grievance committee, ten to the executive director, and only then thirty days to ask that the matter be set for an administrative hearing. The rule prints the whole ladder as text the notice must carry, but leaves the designee's name and the division's address and telephone number as blanks the facility fills in. The federal floor for Medicare/Medicaid-certified facilities is assembled separately on [the federal page](../federal.html); nothing here fills a gap from federal law or another state. Confirm applicability with the agencies named in the sources: whether any provision applies to a particular facility, resident, or notice is for the hearing office to determine. Deadlines and periods on this page are quoted from the sources, not calculated for any case.