We have been greatly concerned about the recent reports of harassment toward patients of different ethnic and religious groups. An Asheville Citizen-Times article by Julie Ball in March, "Local doctors speak out about incidents of hate speech" reported an incident of verbal assault in a waiting room toward a Muslim woman expressing her faith by wearing a hijab, as well as reports of patient-on-patient and patient-on-staff intimidation and harassment.

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Young and old gathered next to Blue Ridge Hospital with signs on Monday, urging Mission Health's board of directors to keep the labor and delivery department open. 

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In an effort to consolidate women's and children's services in Franklin, Mission Health has announced it will be closing those practices in Sylva.

Mission Children's-Sylva and Mission Women's-Sylva, which came under Mission's umbrella four years ago, will likely close in September as the consolidation is completed. 

This news comes just weeks after Mission made the announcement it would discontinue labor and delivery services at Angel Medical Center in Franklin, forcing women to have to travel 25 minutes to an hour and a half to deliver their babies.

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Despite all the buzz this legislative session about the opioid addiction problem across North Carolina, the Senate budget didn't include much money towards addiction recovery. And the House only added funds near the end of the budgeting process.

In April, House Appropriation Chair Rep. Nelson Dollar (R-Cary) pledged to fund at least $20 million toward addiction recovery as part of the

STOP Act (Strengthen Opioid Misuse Prevention Act).

During the House budget press conference on Thursday, Dollar said his chamber is still working on funds for the STOP Act.

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As a response to the opioid crisis builds at the federal level, North Carolina continues its progress towards policy changes that will impact the prescribing and dispensing of opioids. The Strengthen Opioid Misuse Prevention (STOP) Act introduced in the House this March has moved to the Senate Health Care Committee, and would increase the use of the Controlled Substance Reporting System and limit initial prescriptions for acute pain, among other changes (summarized by the NC Medical Society here). At the same time, NC DMA considers changes, currently in draft form, to the Medicaid Prior Authorization Criteria for opioid analgesics. 

These policies, once passed or finalized, could impact patients, providers and pharmacists considerably. In the meantime, CCNC's Opioid Safety toolkit has multiple resources that can be used today to increase provider comfort with the issue and help educate patients about the seriousness of the public health threat. One such document discusses safe disposal of opioids. To prevent diversion or accidental overdoses, we can all remember to share drop box locations at area police or sheriff departments and at Walgreen's Safe Medication Disposal Kiosk at 1835 Hendersonville Road in Asheville.

WASHINGTON - Continuing a dropout trend seen in the Obama years, about 16 percent of consumers who signed up for coverage this year through public health insurance markets had canceled their plans by early spring, the government said Monday.

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For the first time ever, less than half of physicians are independent.

Less than half of practicing physicians in the U.S. owned their medical practice in 2016, marking the first time that the majority of physicians are not practice owners, according to a new study. 

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