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Health Care

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

DHHS under the microscope

Growing costs for drugs and services for the autistic are among the key factors in the funding shortfall that led Gov. Josh Stein’s team to cut Medicaid reimbursement rates starting on Oct. 1, officials say. Appearing before a joint legislative oversight committee, the state’s Medicaid chief, Jay Ludlum, said the...

By Ray Gronberg

October 16, 2025

Stein: $6.5B in medical debt off the books

A late-term initiative by former Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration convinced the state’s 99 acute-care hospitals to eliminate more than $6.5 billion in patients’ debt, benefiting more than 2.5 million residents. That “surpasses initial financial projections” for the initiative, Gov. Josh Stein and his aides said Monday as they announced the...

By Ray Gronberg

October 16, 2025

Treasurer’s office, CVS Caremark end their dispute

Peace has broken out between State Treasurer Brad Briner’s office and CVS Caremark. On Tuesday, the treasurer’s office announced the successful conclusion to talks with the pharmacy benefits manager. They resulted in an agreement, officials said, that secures “hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of the members of the State...

By Ray Gronberg

October 8, 2025

Duke and Aetna iron out their differences

To the surprise of few, one suspects, Duke Health and Aetna have ended their quarrel and agreed to a new contract that keeps Aetna’s patients in-network when they use Duke’s facilities and personnel. Duke announced the deal on Friday and said only that throughout the talks, it’d “remained committed to...

By Ray Gronberg

October 6, 2025

Fitch calls Duke Health’s margins “compressed”

There’s a bit more to say about Duke Health and its finances, given the heat State Treasurer Brad Briner’s office is putting on the hospital system over its ongoing contract negotiations with Aetna. As recounted here Monday, the worry stems from Aetna’s role as administrator of the State Health Plan....

By Ray Gronberg

September 30, 2025

Duke in the crosshairs

Duke University and Duke Health are getting battered from all sides these days, politically speaking. My Business North Carolina colleague Chris Burritt reported recently on the impasse between Duke Health and Aetna, the CVS Health subsidiary that by some reckonings is the country’s fifth-larger health insurer by market share. Duke...

By Ray Gronberg

September 29, 2025

House GOP view on children’s hospital

House Republicans want to claw back all the money legislators have already appropriated for the proposed children’s hospital UNC Health and Duke Health want to build in Apex, House Speaker Destin Hall says. “Duke and UNC have a lot of money,” Hall said Tuesday during his post-session gaggle with the...

By Ray Gronberg

September 24, 2025

Children’s hospital figures in Senate-House standoff

Senators have tried a move to forestall impending Medicaid reimbursement-rate cuts to the funding of the proposed children’s hospital that UNC Health and Duke Health want to build in Apex. Their revision of House Bill 562 passed 47-0 and includes appropriations and spending cuts to free up money for the...

By Ray Gronberg

September 23, 2025

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