Your Midwife Might Soon Get Full Hospital Privileges in Colorado

What This Bill Actually Does

Right now, certified midwives and certified nurse midwives face a frustrating patchwork of hospital rules across Colorado. Even though state law already allows these professionals to practice independently, hospitals often put up their own roadblocks. They might require a medical doctor to co-sign a midwife’s admissions or discharges, or they might deny midwives full staff privileges altogether. The legislature points out that this inconsistent credentialing limits your access to midwifery care, even if that is the kind of care you actively chose.

HB26-1092 changes the game by adding a brand new section to the Colorado Revised Statutes (Section 25-3-135). It draws a hard line for public health facilities that offer labor and childbirth services. Under this bill, these hospitals can no longer deny, restrict, or condition medical staff privileges for a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) or a Certified Midwife (CM) solely based on their license type. As long as the midwife is practicing within their legally authorized scope, the hospital has to treat them as fully credentialed staff.

Here is exactly what hospitals will be legally required to offer these midwives under the new rules:

• Direct Admitting and Discharging: Midwives can bring patients into the hospital and officially send them home without needing a medical doctor (MD) or doctor of osteopathy (DO) to co-sign the paperwork.
• Equal Standing: The privileges granted to midwives must be consistent with the privileges enjoyed by other medical staff on the maternity ward.
• Voting Rights: Midwives get a seat at the table. They will be permitted to exercise the exact same voting rights as physicians on medical staff committees, giving them a real voice in how the hospital operates.

What It Means for You

If you are a parent-to-be, a family planning a pregnancy, or someone who simply prefers midwifery care, this bill fundamentally changes your hospital experience. Right now, choosing a midwife sometimes means choosing between the provider you trust and the hospital setting you want. If your midwife doesn’t have admitting privileges at the local public hospital, you might be forced to switch to a traditional obstetrician or transfer your care unexpectedly if you need to be admitted to the hospital. This bill aims to fix that broken link.

By ensuring midwives have direct admitting and discharge privileges, your continuity of care is protected. Here is the part that matters most for your daily life: you won't have to sit in a hospital bed waiting around for an on-call doctor—who doesn't know you or your birth plan—to officially approve your admission or sign your discharge papers so you can finally take your newborn home. It streamlines the whole process, cutting out the bureaucratic middleman and letting the professional who actually delivered your baby handle the paperwork. Assuming the bill passes without a referendum, these changes will take effect late this summer on August 12, 2026.

What you can do right now:

• Check your local hospital: Call the maternity ward at your local public health facility and ask about their current midwife credentialing policies. Knowing where they stand today will help you understand how much this bill will change your local options.
• Reach out to the committee: This bill is currently sitting in the House Health & Human Services Committee. If you have a personal birth story where hospital privileges (or a lack thereof) impacted your care, email the committee members before their first hearing. Real stories move the needle.

What It Means for Your Business

For hospital administrators, clinic directors, and independent midwifery practices, HB26-1092 requires an immediate review of your operational bylaws. If you operate a public health facility (specifically, one certified under Section 25-1.5-103) with a labor and delivery department, the days of requiring a physician's signature for a midwife's patient are coming to an end. You will need to rewrite your medical staff bylaws to explicitly grant equal voting rights and independent admitting/discharge powers to licensed midwives. This means adjusting your internal risk management protocols, updating your electronic health record (EHR) systems to allow for independent midwife sign-offs, and restructuring your medical staff committees to accommodate new voting members.

For independent midwifery practices, this legislation represents a massive business opportunity. Without the operational bottleneck of finding a physician willing to sponsor or co-sign for hospital privileges, you can expand your patient base and offer seamless hospital birth options. You can market your practice as having full hospital backing. However, it also means your practitioners will be expected to shoulder the full liability and administrative responsibilities of traditional medical staff members, including mandatory committee participation, peer review obligations, and on-call rotations.

Action items for business owners THIS WEEK:

• Audit your bylaws: Hospital compliance officers and legal teams should immediately review current medical staff credentialing guidelines to identify exactly where they conflict with this proposed state mandate.
• Consult your malpractice carrier: Midwifery practices should contact their liability insurance providers right away. Ask if obtaining full, independent hospital privileges—and the expanded liability that comes with it—will impact your premium rates.
• Prepare for integration: Healthcare administrators should start mapping out how to integrate midwives into existing medical staff voting bodies without disrupting current hospital governance structures.

Follow the Money

When it comes to the state budget, this bill is practically invisible. The official fiscal note from Legislative Council Staff confirms there is no appropriation required for FY 2026-27 or beyond. Both state revenue and state expenditures will remain entirely unchanged at $0. Taxpayers are not footing a bill for this policy shift.

The only ripple effect for the state involves a very minor workload increase for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA). They will need to update their guidance and notify hospitals and licensed health care professionals about the new rules, but they can handle that within their existing budgets. The fiscal note also points out there could be tiny shifts in state employee insurance and Medicaid payouts due to changes in how quickly patients are admitted or discharged, but these financial impacts are expected to be negligible.

Where This Bill Stands

HB26-1092 was introduced in the House on February 3, 2026, and was immediately assigned to the House Health & Human Services Committee. It is currently waiting for its first committee hearing to be officially scheduled.

This is the one to watch closely because of who is backing it. The bill has a strong bipartisan flavor with its prime sponsors, Rep. Stephanie Luck and Rep. Jenny Willford, who generally represent very different political bases. This kind of cross-aisle cooperation often bodes well for a bill's survival, framing it as a common-sense healthcare access issue rather than a partisan fight. Keep an eye on the upcoming committee calendar—if major hospital associations decide to push back against the state dictating their internal medical staff credentialing rules, that committee room is exactly where the fireworks will happen.