New hospital, more beds for Asheville area, Buncombe? NC officials seek public comment

ASHEVILLE - Mission Hospital is now competing with two other entities hoping to expand in-patient health care services in Buncombe County.

The state is taking public comments about which health care provider to select for a 26-bed acute care expansion: the for-profit HCA-owned Mission or one of the two non-profit applicants, Florida-based AdventHealth, with an existing hospital in northern Henderson County, or Winston-Salem based Novant Health. Each health care system has different plans, including adding to a current hospital or building a new one. They have proposed locations in Asheville, north Buncombe or Arden.

Certificates of Need, or CONs, are used by states such as N.C. to regulate the addition of new health care services and facilities. The goal, state officials say, is to control health care costs by avoiding unnecessary duplication − though critics say CONs reduce the availability of health care.

The proposals are part of the nonprofits' attempts to increase their shares of the N.C. health care market. That is happening as Mission, owned by the country's biggest health care provider, faces headwinds in the form of a lawsuit by the state attorney general and pushback from local governments over what critics say is a declining level of care.

Written comments must be submitted no later than 5 p.m. July 31. They can be emailed to DHSR.CON.Comments@dhhs.nc.gov or mailed to Healthcare Planning and Certificate of Need Section, Division of Health Service Regulation, 2704 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-2704.

A public hearing will also be held 11 a.m. Aug. 19 in the Ferguson Auditorium of AB-Tech Community College, 340 Victoria Road in Asheville.Novant and AdventHealth had previously announced plans to apply for the Certificate of Need to add 26 acute care beds. Mission applied June 17, records with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services showed. The Citizen Times reached out July 9 to a Mission spokesperson.

The plans:

• Mission, whose owner HCA is based in Tennessee, proposes to develop 26 acute care beds at the existing Mission Hospital in Asheville for a total of 759 acute care beds. The project is expected to cost $1.6 million and would be completed in July 2025.
• AdventHealth and Adventist Health System Sunbelt Healthcare Corporation want to add 26 additional acute care beds to a planned hospital already approved for 67 beds northwest of Weaverville. The additional beds are expected to cost $109.2 million and would be completed in October 2027.
• Novant Health proposes to develop a new cancer-focused hospital, Novant Health Asheville Medical Center, on Long Shoals Road west of the French Broad River with 26 acute care beds. The project is expected to cost $249.4 million and would be completed in December 2028.

For more information, those interested can contact Project Analyst Ena Lightbourne in the NCDHHS Healthcare Planning and Certificate of Need Section at 919-855-3873 or ena.lightbourne@dhhs.nc.gov.

Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He's written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Got a tip? Contact Burgess at jburgess@citizentimes.com, 828-713-1095 or on Twitter @AVLreporter. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.