UNC Health seeks approval for new hospital in Asheville • Asheville Watchdog
UNC Health, the University of North Carolina’s hospital system, has applied for permission to open a 92-bed hospital near downtown Asheville. North Carolina’s state-owned nonprofit health provider, which already operates UNCHealth Pardee in Henderson County, made the request to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services under the state’s Certificate of Need (CON) […]
UNC Health, the University of North Carolina’s hospital system, has applied for permission to open a 92-bed hospital near downtown Asheville. North Carolina’s state-owned nonprofit health provider, which already operates UNCHealth Pardee in Henderson County, made the request to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services under the state’s Certificate of Need (CON) requirement, which requires regulatory approval. The move comes as UNC continues to appeal DHHS’s decision in March to award 95 beds to Mission Hospital and 34 to Novant Health. UNC’s latest application, submitted June 15, was for a separate set of beds that DHHS made available this year through the CON process. That decision by state regulators toaward 95 more beds to Mission Hospital, despite years of high-profile controversies and repeated safety sanctions by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, surprised local officials who had highlighted the need for alternative providers. “We look across the state at areas that we identify as having some gaps. We think that there should be more choice in that region, we think that patients are asking for more access, for more options in terms of care, and especially in terms of higher level care that UNC Health can provide,” said Alan Wolf, director of media relations at UNC Health. Asheville Watchdogreached out to Mission Health, Advent Health and Novant Health to ask if they also submitted applications for the 92 beds. The deadline for this most recent CON was June 15. A hearing on the applications is expected in December, Wolf said. UNC’s proposed facility would offer a range of services including emergency care, intensive care, neonatology, labor and delivery, cardiology, gastroenterology, radiology, psychiatry, speech pathology, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. The proposed site for the hospital is near Westgate Mall and Patton Avenue near Asheville’s downtown. UNC currently has a letter of intent to buy six parcels totaling 21. 5 acres of land to develop the hospital, Wolf said. UNC’s new proposal offers a similar range of services to its proposal that was rejected by DHHS earlier this year, but in a smaller facility and in a different location than the one UNC Health proposed for the last round of CON applications. One of the comments in last year’s denial from the CON agency was that the proposed location was too close to UNC Health Pardee. The new site is 10 miles north of the previously proposed spot. UNC Health currently operates a 222-bed hospital in Hendersonville. It is seeking regulatory approval to construct a new, 92-bed hospital near downtown Asheville. // Image of Pardee provided by UNC HealthLast year the state opened the bidding process after giving approval to add 129 additional hospital beds to serve residents of Buncombe, Graham, Madison and Yancey counties. UNC applied for the UNC Health West Medical Center to build a 129-bed facility in Buncombe County. Florida-based AdventHealth proposed adding the beds to its already approved new facility in Weaverville. Novant Health, based in Winston-Salem, received approval to develop the Novant Health Asheville Medical Center, a 34-bed hospital in Arden. The remainder of the beds were awarded to Mission Hospital. Novant also applying for expansionNovant Health confirmed that they also applied for 20 acute care beds from this most recent CON. If approved, these acute care beds would be folded into the Novant Health Asheville Medical Center, which is being built on a 24-acre site in the Biltmore Park Town Square shopping mall. In their report rejecting UNC’s application for the previous CON, regulators cited the “scope of services” offered as well as project’s “financial feasibility. ” AdventHealth is also appealing. UNC already has a presence in the region through UNC Health Pardee, a 222-bed community hospital based in Hendersonville. As an academic health-system, UNC Health also operates the UNC Health Sciences campus at the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC), which trains doctors and other healthcare providers. Dissatisfaction with current options as well as a growing and aging population has motivated UNC to continue to try and expand into Buncombe County. “As these communities grow, our goal is to grow along with them to ensure increased access to care, closer to home,” said Dr. Cristy Page, CEO of UNC Health. While other healthcare providers like UNC, Advent and Novant have tried to expand their foothold in the region, Mission’s dominance over the western North Carolina health market was recently expanded when regulators awarded them 95 beds that were earmarked for the region through the CON. Despite conditional approval from NCDHHS to build its capacity up to 828 patients by 2031, a nearly 13 percent increase,an analysis bythe Watchdogfound that Mission projected only increasing its staff by 3. 7 percent in the next seven years. Since being purchased by the Nashville-based healthcare provider HCA in 2019, Mission has struggled with an exodus of physicians and nurses, understaffing, and maintaining federal standards of care. Since 2021, regulators at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have issued four Immediate Jeopardy warnings to Mission Hospital connected to nine patient deaths. This sanction, the most severe warning the agency can issue, threatens that a facility might lose access to Medicare and Medicaid funding due to lapses in patient care. Asheville Watchdog welcomes thoughtful reader comments on this story, which has been republished onour Facebook page. Please submit your comments there. Asheville Watchdogis a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Ted Clifford is The Watchdog’s investigative reporter focusing on healthcare. He can be reached at tclifford@avlwatchdog. org. 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