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Independent. Informative. Intelligent.

Health Care

Hospital facility fees attacked — and defended

Stalled legislation that would restrict the use of “facility fees” by hospital systems could reduce healthcare costs for North Carolina families by at least $200 million a year. That’s the estimate from the N.C. Association of Health Plans, whose leader, Peter Daniel, spoke Tuesday to members of a House-Senate joint oversight...

By Ray Gronberg

March 11, 2026

Legislators briefed on Medicaid’s rising autism-care costs

Legislators balk when they see the financial cost of Medicaid-funded autism-care services, but the human costs of not paying bother them every bit as much. The House and Senate’s Medicaid oversight panel delved into the issue on Tuesday, hearing from the state Department of Health and Human Services that the...

By Ray Gronberg

March 11, 2026

Treasurer’s office prepping new RFP State Health Plan claims processing

Aetna’s only been administering claims for the State Health Plan for a little over a year, but officials in Treasurer Brad Briner’s office are already looking aheadto perhaps replacing it. The plan’s executive administrator, Thomas Friedman, recently briefedpotential vendors about his expectations going forward. He minced no words, saying he’s...

By Ray Gronberg

March 4, 2026

State Health Plan rolls out first “preferred providers”

State Health Plan trustees have approved “preferred provider” contracts with the clinic networks of UNC Health and two other groups, State Treasurer Brad Briner’s office says. The move is part of the plan’s cost-control strategy and addresses the primary care needs of its members. Follow-on decisions will address speciality, maternity...

By Ray Gronberg

January 30, 2026

Conservative group eyes case against nurse-practice limits

A California-based conservative group wants to take on North Carolina’s restrictions on advanced-practice nurses, even as the so-called SAVE Act remains bogged down on the General Assembly. The Pacific Legal Foundation, which bills itself as a “national public interest law firm, says it’s looking for nurses who want to challenge...

By Ray Gronberg

December 17, 2025

Duke Health gets OK for tax-exempt bond issue

Duke Health has gained access to up to $275.7 million in tax-exempt bonds to cover the cost of its purchase in April of the former Lake Norman Regional Medical Center. Local Government Commission members signed off on the issue on Tuesday, during their last meeting of 2025. There was no...

By Ray Gronberg

December 3, 2025

State Health Plan staving off projected deficit, for now

The State Health Plan is out of the woods financially, at least for the short term, but members are likely to see further premium and benefits changes in 2027, its executive administrator says. Thanks in part to the rate and benefit changes previously approved, “we are not going to be...

By Ray Gronberg

December 2, 2025

Treasurer questions DHHS rural-health grant application

The Stein administration’s plan to bolster rural healthcare program isn’t bold enough or innovative enough, at least in the eyes of State Treasurer Brad Briner and his aides. “We would have preferred a more transformative approach to actually deal with the dis-economies of scale that are endemic to rural health,...

By Ray Gronberg

December 2, 2025

Emergency rooms

Hospital emergency rooms across the state are already struggling to cope with mental-health patients, and there’s worry that things will get worse because of the new legislators passed in response to the slaying of Iryna Zarutska. The so-called Iryna’s Law — House Bill 307 — is going to put further...

By Ray Gronberg

November 14, 2025

Overturning CON

State Treasurer Brad Briner and the State Employees Association of North Carolina have joined forces to support a New Bern ophthalmologist’s attempt to overturn the state’s certificate of need law. In a Nov. 5 court filing, they argued that the law is a barrier to one of the treasurer’s strategies...

By Ray Gronberg

November 11, 2025

Medicaid rebase in court

State lawyers and a team of attorneys from McGuireWoods are due back in court this morning to argue over whether one of the Medicaid reimbursement cuts Gov. Josh Stein’s team ordered recently should be rolled back. The dispute is in some ways an intra-Democrat quarrel at the moment, as former...

By Ray Gronberg

November 11, 2025

Health insurance

Not quite 11 months after the getting the General Assembly’s OK for the idea, the NC Chamber has rolled out a new health-insurance option for the small businesses among its members. Carolina HealthWorks is a partnership between the Chamber and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. It capitalizes...

By Ray Gronberg

November 4, 2025

High court settles Duke-Pinnacle MRI dispute

State Supreme Court justices have upheld a pair of lower-court decisions that gave a Pinnacle Health Services affiliate the right to set up and operate an MRI machine in Wake Forest. The decision was unanimous in favor of Pinnacle’s bid for a certificate of need over a competing application from...

By Ray Gronberg

October 27, 2025

Duke plans for a new world

Duke University officials warned faculty earlier this fall that the Medicaid cuts associated with the federal government’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” were far worse than they’d expected. Briefing the university’s Academic Council back in September, Vice President for Finance Rachel Satterfield said the institution’s financial planning had assumed Duke Health...

By Ray Gronberg

October 23, 2025

Legislators probe DHHS staffing

A separate oversight hearing on Tuesday the rest of DHHS, meanwhile, had legislators saying the department is using lapsed-salary money as a “slush fund” to cover expenses off-budget. The charge came from Sen. Steve Jarvis, R-Davidson, and Rep. Tim Reeder, R-Pitt, as the joint DHHS oversight panel examined both the...

By Ray Gronberg

October 16, 2025

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