A complicated swirl of factors dictates how expensive the United States’ healthcare system is today, and chief among them – according to legislators and healthcare officials advocating for their reform – are Certificate of Need (CON) laws. A CON law prohibits healthcare providers from building certain medical facilities, developing new health services ...

Almost a year after its launch, Carolina HealthWorks, a health insurance option for small businesses through participating local chambers of commerce, has covered thousands of employees and their families, officials said. The program, a multiple-employer welfare arrangement (MEWA), may prove to be a popular alternative to traditional small-group health plans, according ...

More local nursing graduates are staying in the region, according to officials offering an update on the progress of the New Hanover Healthcare Career Partnership at a public forum last night.  According to Jack Watson, dean of UNCW’s College of Health & Human Services, the number of UNCW nursing graduates choosing to remain in the area after graduation h ...

North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP) program is expected to return to the Cape Fear region soon, though officials can’t yet say exactly what it will look like.  In July, the General Assembly passed its most recent budget, allocating about $9 million to HOP for the fiscal year and leveraging about $16 million in federal funding from the Cen ...

Novant Health Coastal Region generates an annual overall economic impact of $4.33 billion in the Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), according to a new report. Commissioned by Novant Health and conducted by Mouhcine Guettabi, associate professor of economics at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the area’s regional economist, the report ev ...

Some local older adult communities are under new management or preparing to be, including Carolina Bay at Autumn Hall and Bradley Creek at Carolina Bay in Wilmington. The management of Carolina Bay and Bradley Creek, located off Eastwood Road, is transitioning from Liberty Senior Living to Cogir Senior Living effective Oct. 1, said Madison Alewel, Liberty Heal ...

Wilmington Health’s main facility, located at 1202 Medical Center Drive, is part of a pending sale-leaseback deal.  The healthcare provider plans to sell the property, which includes more than 6 acres and a 66,000-square-foot building, in a sale-leaseback transaction. The property was listed at $11.85 million. According to Wilmington Health CEO Jeff James, ...

Atrium Health has purchased 65 acres bordered by Military Cutoff and Crooked Pine roads in New Hanover County as part of its planned expansion into the region, according to a deed recorded Aug. 12. The deed shows a purchase price of $16.4 million for three tracts at 1308 Crooked Pine Road and 1718 Crooked Pine Road from TDR-HL LLC. The site is a triangular tract of ...

Community members and health system officials gathered in the Arboretum Education Center Thursday for a public hearing on competing applications from three major healthcare providers vying for acute care beds in New Hanover County.  In June, Atrium Health, Novant Health and UNC Health submitted proposals to the state to build hospitals in the Wilmington area. The a ...

State and local health leaders highlighted the Wilmington region’s rapidly expanding healthcare infrastructure at the Greater Wilmington Chamber of Commerce’s Healthcare Summit on Tuesday. While N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Devdutta Sangvai, the summit's keynote speaker, did not comment directly on the three-way battle betw ...