News

Duke Health: Requested Aetna rate hike would have small impact on state workers

In an emailed statement to Carolina Journal on Friday, Duke Health said it is “actively engaged in good faith negotiations” with health insurance company Aetna in response to a story that many patients, including over 750,000 state employees covered under the State Health Plan (SHP), will lose in-network coverage to Duke’s doctors, hospitals, clinics, and services on Oct. 20.

Theresa Opeka
News

U.S. Supreme Court declines to take up N.C. State Health Plan dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court will not take up a case involving a dispute over premiums charged to government retirees on North Carolina’s State Health Plan. The court issued an order Monday denying the state’s request to hear the case. The case affects about 220,000 retirees.

CJ Staff
News

N.C. House bill aims at protecting consumers from being financially ruined by medical debt

A North Carolina House bill aimed at protecting consumers from being financially destroyed by medical debt was filed Tuesday, May 24. H.B. 1039, Medical Debt De-Weaponization Act would create a pro-family, anti-poverty consumer protection law geared toward setting transparent parameters around the provision of charity care, limiting the ability of large medical facilities to charge unreasonable interest rates and employ unfair tactics in debt collection.

Theresa Opeka
News

Report shows N.C. hospitals come up short in charity care

A majority of the state’s hospitals are reaping the benefits of tax-exempt status but come up short in providing adequate charity care to earn that designation — and they’re getting away with it. That’s the conclusion of a report released in October jointly by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the N.C....

David N. Bass
News

Some nonprofit hospitals reaping benefits off patients while providing less care

At a time when North Carolina is ranked as one of the most expensive states for health care in the nation, many nonprofit hospitals are reaping huge profits while providing little in the way of charity care. That’s according to a report by the N.C. State Health Plan and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public...

Theresa Opeka

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