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North Carolina Health News
New federal rule to boost pay for home health workers
Under a new federal rule, home health care providers in North Carolina will be required to put most of the money they receive from Medicaid toward workers’ wages. The policy, issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on April 22 as part of the Biden administration’s Expanding Access to Medicaid Services initiative, comes amid a national shortage of direct care workers. As in other states, North Carolina has struggled in recent years to find enough people willing to provide at-home services to seniors and disabled residents on Medicaid.
HCA pruned staff at Mission Hospital, reaped soaring profits, academic study finds
Staff cuts have driven up patient-care profits at Mission Hospital in Asheville after HCA Healthcare acquired the facility, according to a draft report by Mark Hall, director of the health law and policy program at Wake Forest University. The report tracked the hospital’s profits from 2011 to 2022 and compared...
NC abortion providers brace for influx of patients from the South
A six-week abortion ban taking effect today in Florida will usher in a significant shift in abortion access in the South. The new restrictions position North Carolina as one of the last places in the South that allows abortion past six weeks of pregnancy — a point at which many women do not yet know they are pregnant.
NC lawmakers receive competing firearm regulation messages
Gun rights supporters want North Carolina to continue relaxing restrictions, asking legislators last week to get rid of the state permit required to carry a concealed firearm. Grassroots North Carolina filed a petition that organizers said had more than 7,000 signatures in support of House Bill 189, or the “Freedom to Carry NC” bill.
North Carolina to expand peer-led crisis services in push for more mental health support
North Carolinians in need of mental health support now have more places to call — and soon will have more places to go — for help. The state health department is investing more money in a greater array of mental health crisis services, including those run by peer support specialists.
Rural communities face primary care physician shortage
A new study from the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Robert Graham Center (AAFP), co-funded by the Milbank Memorial Fund and The Physicians Foundation, has found that communities across the country are struggling to meet the demand for primary care physicians, as well as to retain those physicians in their communities. While it’s difficult all over, Dr. Yalda Jabbarpour, lead researcher on the study, said, it is more difficult for rural communities.
“We can make more success stories”: State leaders mobilize to strengthen reentry support
Ninety-five percent of incarcerated people in North Carolina prisons will one day return home — roughly 18,000 people this year alone. But walking out of the doors of a prison often marks the start of new hardships and challenges as people work to rebuild their lives in the community. For most people, the path holds a variety of obstacles that can be distressing and difficult to overcome.
Governor’s health care budget proposals would help NC’s most vulnerable
Now that Gov. Roy Cooper has checked expanding Medicaid off his gubernatorial to-do list, he has shifted his health care focus to the needs of North Carolina’s most vulnerable — the young, the old and the disabled — in his proposed spending plan for the coming fiscal year.
Charting a roadmap for North Carolina’s growing 65-plus population
There’s an old saying that age is just a number. But when you look at the state demographer’s projected growth of the 65-and-older population in North Carolina over the next decade, that’s more than just a number. It’s an eye-opening statistic. From 2021 to 2041, the...
Western North Carolina coalition calls for action on single-use plastic pollution
Seven months after a provision added to the 2023-24 North Carolina state budget prohibited municipalities from establishing single-use plastic bag ordinances, a group of Western North Carolina environmental advocates is pushing back. On Earth Day, against the scenic backdrop of a clear blue sky and the majestic French Broad River,...
The rise of mega-hospitals
When it comes to growth, it seems like hospitals can’t get enough of it. Across the country, a tidal wave of hospital mergers and acquisitions in recent years has created multi-billion-dollar hospital giants that serve large swaths of the population. For example, just in North Carolina:. Atrium Health’s massive...
Indigenous principles inspire Rights of Nature movement to combat environmental threats
The organizers of the first Earth Day event in 1970 wanted to raise awareness of the environment in the collective consciousness. Now, a half-century later, environmentalists are looking to give nature personhood status. Many contend that environmental protections like the Clean Water Act have proven insufficient to shield wetlands from...
Wilson County deploys overdose reversal kits to combat epidemic of opioid deaths
Small purple boxes have become a promising tool in Wilson County’s fight to lessen the deadly toll of the opioid epidemic. ONEbox is a first aid-like kit that contains doses of naloxone, a nasal spray that can rapidly reverse the effects of opioid overdose. When the kit is opened, a screen embedded in the lid plays a video of a paramedic giving step-by-step instructions for administering the drug.
Guilford County leads the state on fetal, infant death reviews
Guilford County has been tracking infant deaths for decades, yet officials there continue to struggle with high death rates and no answers. Jean Workman and Leandra Vernon with Every Baby Guilford hope to change that with the formation of North Carolina’s only Fetal and Infant Mortality Review program. “As...
Reducing maternal death rates for Black women will take concerted, cooperative action
Almost six years ago, Tomeka Isaac said she came very close to joining a list no one wants to be part of — the tally of Black women who have died related to pregnancy. In May 2018, Isaac’s pregnancy took a turn at 35 weeks when she passed out. She was rushed to a small hospital in Pineville, North Carolina, and admitted to the emergency room.
Over 20,000 children in NC have a parent who’s incarcerated. A handful of them visited prison for a day of bonding and connecting.
These are pretty run-of-the-mill things kids tell their dads at the dinner table, on the couch or during a car ride from place to place. But on a recent Saturday, the setting for these comments was not all that ordinary: Parent Day at Orange Correctional Center, a state-run minimum security prison in Hillsborough.
City-country mortality gap widens amid persistent holes in rural health care access
In Matthew Roach’s two years as vital statistics manager for the Arizona Department of Health Services, and 10 years previously in its epidemiology program, he has witnessed a trend in mortality rates that has rural health experts worried. As Roach tracked the health of Arizona residents, the gap between...
Fighting in the courts may lead to more care options for people with disabilities
It has been a busy few weeks in the courts for an organization that has been a staunch advocate for North Carolinians with disabilities. Disability Rights North Carolina announced a settlement agreement on Wednesday with the state Department of Health and Human Services in a long-running state court battle known as the Samantha R case.
Biden administration’s action on PFAS: A shift in quality of life?
One thing that stood out during Monday’s solar eclipse was the shift in light quality as the moon crept across in front of the sun, shielding the Earth from its rays momentarily before retreating. Three days later, some North Carolinians, especially those living in Cape Fear River Basin communities...
Time running out to extend federal program that provides 900,000 North Carolinians with affordable internet
In September 2023, Sara Nichols went before the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., to advocate for the continuation of a federal program that has provided more than 900,000 low-income North Carolinians with help paying for internet access. Created through a sweeping...
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