Two weeks ago, there was a nice groundbreaking ceremony with a lot of smiling faces. Gov. Josh Stein traveled all the way out to the mountains to celebrate AdventHealth’s Weaverville hospital, now officially under construction. But before the handshakes and pats on the backs, AdventHealth had to fight for four years in court after their initial 2022 approval because their competitors didn’t like the idea of… well, competing with them.
And our state’s CON process, which forces health providers to convince a government panel that there is a need for the service they want to provide, allows rivals exactly this power to appeal over and over, delaying and often blocking other providers from entering the area. In this case, HCA/Mission, who has a near monopoly in much of North Carolina’s mountains, put AdventHealth through years of appeals before finally the NC Supreme Court affirmed the original decision to allow them to build the 67-bed facility in Weaverville.
But AdventHealth also wants to build other health care facilities in the mountains. Victoria Dunkle, a spokesperson for AdventHealth, told CJ that one of these projects, adding 26 other beds to the Weaverville facility, was also held up by HCA/Mission appeals but that there would be a decision soon…