Hospital executives this week helped block approval of a Colorado agency’s draft report that claimed hospitals across the state mismanaged their finances and reaped skyrocketing revenues while shifting more of their costs to insurers.

Executives of four hospitals, as well as a Colorado Hospital Association official, voted Tuesday not to accept the findings of a groundbreaking draft report that cast hospital systems in an unflattering light and raised significant concerns about many hospitals’ financial practices.

The move came during a meeting of the Colorado Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise board, which oversees the state’s hospital provider fee. A Kaiser Permanente representative abstained, citing a recent conflict of interest, and another board member was absent. Without the support of a majority of the 13-member board, the draft report won’t be finalized or forwarded by the board to state legislators.

The draft report, which was released in January, claimed that hospitals failed to use the state’s provider fee – as well as Medicaid’s expansion under the Affordable Care Act – to charge insurers less. Instead, hospitals padded their bottom lines by charging insurers more, likely contributing to rising insurance rates across the state, the report said.