To control costs, nearly all health insurers use a system called prior authorization, which requires patients or their providers to seek approval before they can get certain procedures, tests, and prescriptions.
As Medicaid cuts loom thanks to President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” families across the country, including here in North Carolina, have to contend with the potential loss of benefits.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
First Lady Anna Stein announced a partnership this week called Unshame NC, aimed at reducing stigma around substance use disorder and promoting treatment.
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.
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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