The coronavirus did what years of lawmaking and lawsuits failed to do — pushed North Carolina to temporarily waive barriers on telemedicine and the controversial certificate of need laws that restrict the supply of health care. Ambulatory surgery centers can now act as temporary hospitals. Out-of-state telemedicine providers can treat patients. Adult care homes, mental...
An obscure regulation could cripple hospitals’ collective ability to treat a coronavirus outbreak in North Carolina, says surgeon Jeffrey Singer, senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Experts don’t yet know the severity of the coronavirus, but they fear it could overwhelm the nation’s health care system. North Carolina’s hospitals are underprepared because of state Certificate...
A second court has blocked voter ID in North Carolina — a move policymakers and analysts denounce as riddled with substantive and procedural problems. A state Court of Appeals three-judge panel has temporarily banned a law requiring voter ID in North Carolina elections. This comes after a U.S. District Court judge blocked the same law...
Medicaid transformation will be a casualty of the budget stalemate. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday, Nov. 19, that Medicaid transformation would be placed on hold indefinitely. That announcement came hours after Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, issued a news release predicting the move. Krawiec’s release suggested that an announcement from Gov....
Some N.C. lawmakers are thinking about ways to deal with foster children whose birth parents are struggling with substance abuse. House Bill 918 would allow foster parents who have cared for a child up to 3 years old, for at least nine months, to file a motion terminating the birth parents’ parental rights. It would...
The overhaul of North Carolina’s Medicaid’s infrastructure is caught in the stand-off between Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and the Republican legislature. After its funding was locked in the budget stalemate and then sunk by Cooper’s veto of a stand-alone bill, the Department of Health and Human Service delayed Medicaid transformation by four months, pushing the...
For two meetings and a few signatures, Stephenie Brinson pays $24,000 to stay in business each year. As a nurse practitioner in North Carolina, Brinson must have a supervising physician whose scope of practice encompasses her duties. If she loses the supervising physician, she has 30 days to find a new one, or she must...
Reforms to health-care regulations aren’t dead. Certificate of need reform was one of the bills sacrificed as scrap material for the piecemeal budget. As Republicans looked to push pieces of the budget past Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto, they stripped House Bill 126 and transformed it into a salary increase for the highway patrol. But...
A years-long push to expand competition in the health-care industry passed the Senate Health Committee Monday and soon may reach the Senate floor. Under current certificate-of-need laws, hospitals and medical providers must apply to the state planning board before they can build or expand facilities. North Carolina’s CON laws impose the nation’s fifth-toughest restrictions on...
A push to reform North Carolina’s certificate-of-need restrictions on health providers will make it to the Senate floor. A watered-down version of CON reform laws, House Bill 126, passed the Senate Rules Committee Tuesday, July 2. CON laws require hospitals and providers to apply to the state planning board for permission whenever they build or...
Senators opposing North Carolina’s onerous certificate-of-need laws have no plans to stop pushing reforms. “I am still committed to CON reform, and we will make it happen,” Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, told Carolina Journal on Friday, June 21. “We look forward to continue our work with stakeholders to improve the process.” Krawiec on Thursday said...
