Healthcare
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How a North Carolina help line delivers pediatric mental health services statewide
North Carolina’s lack of child psychiatrists, especially in rural areas, leaves pediatricians to face conditions beyond their specialty. Here’s how the NC Psychiatry Access Line (NC-PAL) helps.
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Charlotte embraces model guaranteeing doctors on demand, no insurance required
Through a model called direct primary care, more NC employers—like the city of Charlotte—are bypassing insurance and paying doctors directly, “like a gym membership for health care.”
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It’s almost flu season. Should you still get a shot, and will insurance cover it?
Amid political chatter about vaccines and the government entities that oversee them, it’s understandable to wonder where all this leaves the 2025-26 flu vaccine. In short: Yes, the flu shot is still a thing. And four doctors we spoke to said they recommend you get your flu shot this year.
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North Carolina will cut Medicaid rates in October, putting care at risk
The General Assembly has still not agreed on a full budget and the “mini-budget” it passed last month fell $319 million short of what is needed to fund Medicaid. The state’s health secretary told lawmakers that if they don’t fill that gap, some services would have to be reduced.
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These NC kids rely on Medicaid to survive. Trump’s cuts could force them out of their homes.
A Medicaid waiver program helps Kinsley Stadler and Emma Staggs thrive in their homes despite significant disabilities. When their moms went to DC to implore Republicans in Congress not to pass huge cuts to Medicaid, some GOP staff locked their doors while others rolled their eyes.
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NC First Lady Anna Stein wants to do something about the state’s opioid crisis. Here’s how.
First Lady Anna Stein announced a partnership this week called Unshame NC, aimed at reducing stigma around substance use disorder and promoting treatment.
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Opinion: The unintended consequences of work requirements for Medicaid are dangerous
Rachel Phipps, a Concord resident and healthcare advocate who has with Lupus and Multiple Sclerosis, relies on Medicaid. The Medicaid work requirements proposed in the new federal budget bill do not reflect the realities facing North Carolinians with difficult-to-manage health conditions, she writes.
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States can cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, the Supreme Court rules
A divided Supreme Court allowed states to cut off Medicaid money to Planned Parenthood in a ruling handed down Thursday amid a wider Republican-backed push to defund the country’s biggest abortion provider.
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Small towns are having a hard time getting healthcare. A new program offers loan repayments for rural NC doctors.
North Carolina’s new loan repayment initiative aims to attract and retain primary care physicians in rural areas. North Carolina is taking bold steps to address the critical shortage of healthcare providers in its rural communities, which serve nearly one-third of the state’s population. Through its new loan repayment initiative, the state aims to attract and…
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‘We ought to do what we promise’: A Veteran forum on care, democracy, and cost of inaction
At Cardinal & Pine’s first live event, North Carolina veterans, families, and lawmakers warned that proposed cuts to VA care—and attacks on democracy—threaten those who’ve already sacrificed the most.
