Court and Spark!

ASHEVILLE, NC  – October 11, 2023 – After the recent passage of the 2023-24 North Carolina state budget, the state will expand Medicaid on December 1^st. Medicaid expansion extends coverage to persons making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level from 100 percent. It is estimated that 600 thousand additional North Carolinians will be eligible for Medicaid. Preparation has included enrollment events, training for groups that provide services to Medicaid beneficiaries, and hiring staff to register eligible people.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services have figured out a way to fast-track this process for about half of the eligible people, numbering 300 hundred thousand.

The federal COVID era rules for keeping people on Medicaid during the pandemic ended on April 1^st. Therefore, states were allowed to remove people from Medicaid if they made too much money to qualify for the federal program for health insurance for low-resource individuals.

Fortunately, North Carolina has a limited Medicaid benefit that provides for family planning benefits for people who make up to 195 percent of the federal poverty level. 300 thousand people recently lost their Medicaid insurance. However, they were enrolled in this limited benefit plan and will be automatically enrolled in the full-benefit Medicaid plan.

Kody Kinsley, the secretary for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, said in an interview, “I wish that the General Assembly had moved faster, and we would be able to have had this program in place before the unwinding so that folks wouldn’t have even had any of this downtime.”

The state has about 2 months to find and enroll the remaining 300 thousand North Carolinians who are now eligible for Medicaid.

Listen to the full report below:

Contact: Dr. Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, [email protected]

BUNCOMBE COUNTY, NC  – October 16, 2023 –  Buncombe County Schools opened its first school-based wellness center on October 16^th at the Erwin Middle School. The clinic is run by Blue Ridge Health (BRH), a Federal Qualified Health Center (FQHC). This program offers healthcare services to students, immediate families, and staff. Each student must be registered by a parent or guardian in order to access the health services. The health center is open during regular school hours. The cost for services can be billed to the patient’s health insurance or it is billed on a sliding scale based upon the family’s size and annual income. School-based health services include primary care, urgent care, dental care, behavioral health, and nutrition. The funding for the program comes from the federal government, Dogwood Health Trust, and local donations.

Low resource and disadvantaged communities frequently have poor access to medical care and a higher level of chronic and untreated disease. A FQHC’s mission is to serve the needs of the needy as a safety-net provider of health care for the community. Its clinics provide a place for individuals to receive primary health care and wellness services without regard to insurance status.

There are many other school-based health care centers in Western North Carolina. Blue Ridge Health has 34 school-based clinics in 7 counties offering health care to more than 3,000 children. BRH has school-based wellness clinics at the following Asheville schools: Asheville Middle School, IC Imagine K-12 Public Charter School, and the Franklin School of Innovation. The Appalachian Mountain Community Health Centers (another local FQHC) and the United Way partner to run a clinic at the Asheville High School.

It took a year to create the Erwin Middle School wellness center. Other partners include MAHEC Family Health Centers, Buncombe County Health & Human Services, and United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County. The wellness center is staffed by one full-time counselor and nurse, a part-time advanced practitioner, and a mobile dental unit. The health center will have a food pantry and clothing closet to support the needs of the community. Telehealth is also offered through the center.

The benefits of a school-based health center are:

• Better access to health care
• Less student absenteeism
• Less stress over transportation to medical appointments
• Money savings
• Connectivity building between schools and families

Listen to the full report below:

Contact: Dr. Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, [email protected]

ASHEVILLE, NC –  October 25, 2023 – The COVID-19 metrics are on the CDC’s COVID Dashboard. For the week ending on October 14^th:

• Hospital admission levels are low in every county in North Carolina, including Buncombe County, and about 93% of the counties in the U.S. However, they have decreased in North Carolina and increased in Buncombe County from the previous week.
• Between 1-9 of the deaths in North Carolina were due to COVID, the lowest level of 6 groups.
• Emergency room visits for COVID-19 are low in North Carolina. This represents about 2% of all ER visits, the 2^nd lowest of 5 levels and fewer than the previous week.

Wastewater monitoring can be used to provide early warning for COVID outbreaks. The Buncombe & Henderson counties wastewater data for the week ending on October 11^th is on the North Carolina COVID Dashboard.

• The number of viral gene copies in each water sample is at an orange level representing the 4^th highest level of 5 groups, currently between the 60^th and 80^th percentile relative to the past level measured at the same site.
• The 15-day rate of change of the number of viral gene copies in each water sample has decreased from the previous week, between -10 and -99%, the lowest group of the 2 groups for a negative rate of change.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wants everyone to know that:

• COVID-19 can affect people differently. Some people have mild symptoms like a cold and others have more severe symptoms like a bad case of the flu. Some effects can be long-lasting.
• Older adults and immunocompromised people are at a higher risk of developing severe illness and being hospitalized.

The Department of Health and Human Services recommends:

• Stay up-to-date with COVID-19 vaccines. The new updated vaccine is available locally at pharmacies, health centers and at the Buncombe County Health and Human Services Building at 40 Coxe Avenue in Asheville during regular business hours.
• For extra protection, wear an efficient medical grade mask
• People who are positive for COVID-19 or do not feel well should stay home
• People with any COVID symptoms should get tested
• If you test positive, your doctor may recommend medical treatment

If you get COVID, here’s the latest CDC guidelines:

• Isolate for 5 days provided the fever has resolved for at least 24 hours without taking any fever-reducing medicine. (Day 0 is the day that symptoms first appear. If there are no symptoms but a positive test, then day 0 is the day the test was positive.) Isolation means staying home and away from others.
• After the isolation period, wear a high-quality mask around others at home and in public for the next 5 days
• Masking can stop earlier with 2 negative antigen tests taken 48 hours apart

More and more Americans have developed some immunity to COVID-19 from immunizations and previous infection. New variants continue to infect people with the most at-risk groups more susceptible to severe illness.

Listen to the full report below:

Contact: Dr. Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, [email protected]