North Carolina Health Planning Update for 2024: Summer Petitions Have Been Filed

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As we reported last month, the draft 2024 State Medical Facilities Plan (SMFP) was released on July 3, 2023. The SMFP is North Carolina’s key health planning document in which the State publishes need determinations for health care services and equipment such as acute care beds, operating rooms, and MRI scanners. If a need determination is included in the SMFP, providers may then file certificate of need (CON) applications proposing to meet the need. The draft SMFP applies various methodologies that generate need determinations, but these methodologies do not always address specific needs that a particular geographic area or population may have, and in some cases, the methodology may overstate the need for certain services or equipment. Throughout the month of July, the North Carolina State Health Coordinating Council (SHCC), the governor-appointed body that oversees the development of the SMFP, held a series of public hearings in which interested parties presented petitions for special need determinations or the elimination of need determinations included in the draft 2024 SMFP. The last day to submit petitions was July 26. The list of petitions submitted is as follows…