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Health Care

UNC Health takeover of psychiatric hospitals?

The House’s involuntary-commitment reform bill includes provisions that ask UNC Health to consider taking over the operations of North Carolina’s three state-owned psychiatric hospitals. House Bill 1104 wants an answer from UNC Health by December. It also gives the system the option of taking over only “certain operations,” or of...

By Ray Gronberg

June 5, 2026

Community Colleges struggles to fill nursing posts

North Carolina has a nursing shortage, but the N.C. Community Colleges has its own problems when it comes to hiring instructors in the field to train people who could close the gap. State Auditor Dave Boliek’s recent report on the 136 long-term vacancies in the Community Colleges system found that...

By Ray Gronberg

June 5, 2026

Hall on WakeMed/Atrium merger

House Speaker Destin Hall isn’t inclined to join the parade of elected officials criticizing the proposed WakeMed/Atrium hospital-system merger. “Both of them certainly know what they’re doing, and I imagine they’ll get it figured out, one way or the other, and I hope they do that without us having to...

By Ray Gronberg

May 12, 2026

Berger: Answers needed on WakeMed cost impact

WakeMed and Atrium Health need to come to the table “prepared to answer” concerns about whether their proposed merger will fuel or moderate healthcare cost increases, Senate leader Phil Berger says. But Berger signaled on Tuesday that while the deal bears “some digging into,” he’s inclined to let the Wake...

By Ray Gronberg

May 11, 2026

House Dems agreed with Burgin on merger oversight

House Democrats have lined up behind a merger-oversight bill for hospitals that’s substantively identical to the one Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, introduced on April 30. “We want a process to be followed,” Rep. Sarah Crawford, D-Wake, said Monday during a caucus news conference on a quartet of healthcare bills. “We...

By Ray Gronberg

May 11, 2026

WakeMed makes its case

WakeMed officials say cost-cutting pressure from the federal and state governments and competition from UNC Health and Duke Health mean they have no choice but to find what they’re calling a “strategic partner.” “The reality as we look five, 10 and 25 years ahead, we know WakeMed cannot continue to...

By Ray Gronberg

May 11, 2026

Wake delays WakeMed/Atrium merger vote

Wake County Commissioners have agreed to delay consideration of a contract change that would clear the way for the proposed WakeMed/Atrium Health merger. The delay will last for at least 90 days, commissioners say. It will “provide time for the hospitals to engage with the community,” answer questions and make...

By Ray Gronberg

May 11, 2026

Burgin proposes clampdown on hospital mergers

Sen. Jim Burgin, the Harnett County Republican who co-chairs the Senate’s Health committee, got wind of the prospective Atrium Health/WakeMed merger about three weeks ago but got stonewalled when he asked Atrium officials about it. Burgin says his “contact at Atrium” wouldn’t answer when he said he’d heard a rumor...

By Ray Gronberg

May 11, 2026

Atrium/ Wake Med merger update

If history is any guide, the impending merger of WakeMed with Charlotte-based Atrium Health “will not benefit the public,” State Treasurer Brad Briner says. “There is a simple business principle that when suppliers consolidate and competition is reduced it is the consumers who suffer,” he said after the two hospital systems announced their deal. “This...

By Ray Gronberg

May 11, 2026

Blue Cross NC posts $497.3M loss for 2025

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina posted a $497.3 million loss in calendar 2025, a report to the N.C. Department of Insurance says. The loss comes after BCBSNC netted $68.5 million in calendar 2024. “Like insurers nationwide, [BCBSNC] faced significant cost pressures in 2025 as health care costs continued...

By Ray Gronberg

May 1, 2026

Batch backtracks on Medicaid rebase

Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch, D-Wake, has walked back her caucus’s support of the Medicaid rebase bill that it has already voted in favor of passing. She put out a letter on Friday asking the Senate’s Republican leaders to pull back the bill and rewrite it to drop three of...

By Ray Gronberg

April 27, 2026

House panel shelves hospital-taxation proposals

The House’s property tax committee wrapped up its pre-session work on Wednesday without offering any endorsement of the idea of reeling in some of the tax breaks the state gives hospitals. Members endorsed the idea of putting a constitutional amendment on the fall ballot that, if voter-approved, would require the...

By Ray Gronberg

April 22, 2026

First State Health Plan claims-processing RFP comes a cropper

State Treasurer Brad Briner’s staff needs to send out a new RFP for a State Health Plan claims processor because the first one didn’t draw any responses that met their minimum requirements. The new RFP will go out “in the coming weeks” and the goal remains to have options for...

By Ray Gronberg

April 22, 2026

UNC Wilmington pushing for new med school

Officials at UNC Wilmington want the university to set up its own standalone medical school, and have a plan they say can enroll the first 60 would-be doctors for the 2029-30 academic year. Chancellor Aswani Volety briefed members of the UNC System Board of Governors about the idea on Wednesday....

By Ray Gronberg

April 22, 2026

Plymouth hospital endorses nurse-practice bills

A coastal hospital has joined the groups advocating for a relaxation of the state’s restrictions on advanced-practice nurses. Washington Regional Medical Center has joined a coalition that favors passage of either Senate Bill 537 or House Bill 514. Either would give advanced-practice nurses more latitude to practice outside a physician’s...

By Ray Gronberg

April 15, 2026

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