NC Cases:
46,855
NC Cases Hospitalized:
849
NC Deaths:
1,225
Coronavirus Hospitalizations
North Carolina has reached another new daily high in the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations. On Wednesday, the state had 849 people in the hospital due to the coronavirus. That's an increase of 20 over Tuesday's total, which was the previous single-day high.
The daily number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients fluctuated between 400 and 550 between mid-April and mid-May. It surpassed 600 for the first time on Memorial Day and has now been more than 800 four times in the last seven days, elevating the seven-day average to 809.7. The rising number of hospitalizations has the attention of Cohen and Gov. Roy Cooper as they decide whether to continue to relax social restrictions. While she said the state is not at a crisis point, it is something that must be addressed to keep the state's healthcare system from being overwhelmed. "We have to do something to stem the growth rate," Cohen said.
Wednesday's DHHS update showed the hospital system has room for more patients as 79% of the state's hospital beds and 77% of ICU beds are currently in use. Though hospitals have enough capacity now, Cohen said "if we just react to hospitalizations, by the time we get close to maxing out hospitalizations, it could be too late." Cohen said it's best to react two to three weeks before maxing out hospital capacity.
State Restriction Plan
GARY D. ROBERTSON, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 6/15/20
Gov. Roy Cooper said on Monday he'll announce early next week whether businesses still shuttered because of COVID-19 will be allowed to reopen. Under Cooper's current order, restaurants can offer dine-in seating, and barbershops and hair and nail salons are open - but all at reduced capacity. Bars, movie theaters, bowling alleys and gyms remain closed. Cooper has to decide whether to extend the order, which expires June 26, or modify it in some way. At a media briefing, the Democratic governor said the decision will be based on science and data. He said he remained concerned by the continued uptick in cases and hospitalizations in particular the trends in nine counties. Overall, the number of positive COVID-19 cases exceeded 45,100 as of Monday morning, according to state health data.
"Right now, they're not trending in a good direction, but we still want to give this more time," Cooper said. He pitched the idea that the public could stop a "second wave" of cases by practicing social distancing, including the wearing of face masks, to prevent its spread. "We believe that we can get a handle on this," Cooper said. "That being said, we will always do what is best for the health and safety of North Carolinians." Cooper also said his administration is considering whether to issue an order mandating wearing face masks in public. Employees in personal service businesses such as hair and nail salons already are required to wear them.
Cooper said he spoke with Vice President Mike Pence over the weekend about North Carolina's trends. He said he asked Pence and the federal government for more resources for testing sites. The number of completed tests surpassed 638,000 as of Monday. The state is currently working toward testing residents in all nursing homes. More than half of North Carolina's COVID-19-related deaths involve nursing home residents. Cooper identified the nine counties where case trends are getting the state's attention as Alamance, Duplin, Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Johnston, Lee, Mecklenburg and Wake.
DHHS Coronavirus Response
DHHS will use $35 million in federal funds to ramp up the state's response to the coronavirus pandemic. The funds are allocated to county public health departments for coronavirus testing and tracing, as well as COVID-19 staffing, infection controls and data sharing.
Local health departments will receive base allocations of $90,000 per county with additional funding based on population size and their cumulative positive COVID-19 caseload, the DHHS said. Some health departments represent multiple counties. This one-time, non-recurring funding is part of the DHHS cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity. The coverage provided will extend from the beginning of the 2020 calendar year through the end of fiscal 2022.
Court Expanding Video Technology
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 6/15/20
North Carolina's highest court made history on Monday by hearing oral arguments using video conferencing as the court system continues to attempt to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The state judicial system said the cases marked the first time oral arguments were heard using remote technology since the court convened in 1819. State Supreme Court justices listened online from their offices to lawyers representing plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving insurance companies and a hospital. Ten cases were to be heard using this method through Wednesday. Members of the public could watch the remote arguments online. The state Court of Appeals made similar history on April 30 when a three-judge panel of the court heard arguments through video conferencing. Other courts are using similar technology as in-person hearings have been scaled back due to the coronavirus.
Medicaid Transformation
Colin Campbell, THE INSIDER, 6/17/20
The long-delayed Medicaid Transformation project would get back on track next year under a funding bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday. Senate Bill 808 would also use $50 million from federal coronavirus relief funding to provide mental health and crisis services needed because of COVID-19, and it would scrap the state's plan to move the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters to Granville County.
Much of Tuesday's floor debate centered on the new July 1, 2021, deadline to implement Medicaid Transformation. An amendment from Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, increased the funding amount in the bill from $19.42 million to $69.42 million, which he said addressed a request from DHHS. Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth and sponsor of the bill, said the state will save $17 million per month once the program is in place.
If DHHS doesn't meet the new deadline, it would be responsible for paying the prepaid health plans participating in Medicaid $4 million per month to compensate for their losses.
Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell and co-sponsor of the bill, called the legislation a "compromise" because it cancels the Senate's plan to move DHHS to Granville County when it leaves Raleigh's Dorothea Dix property to make way for a park. "We have much cheaper and much more efficient options for locating this headquarters," Hise said. The bill calls instead for a "suitable site" in Wake County.
The bill passed the Senate and is now being debated in the House
Justice Reforms
WILL DORAN, THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 6/16/20
Two criminal-justice reforms that, for months, had stalled at the North Carolina General Assembly have been revived in the wake of days of sustained Black Lives Matter protests around North Carolina. They could now become reality in a matter of days. The state Senate finalized one bill Tuesday and sent another to the House of Representatives for final approval there - which could happen as soon as Wednesday. "This is just another concrete step of pushing North Carolina forward with criminal justice reform," said Republican Sen. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, one of the key backers of both bills. The two bills are the First Step Act and the Second Chance Act. Both passed the Senate unanimously on Tuesday. The Senate had passed slightly different versions of both bills last year, but they had gone nowhere in the House.
The Second Chance Act, SB 562, is now on Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's desk, to either approve or veto. It contains numerous changes related to helping people expunge their criminal records - both for people who had charges against them dropped or, in some cases, for people who were convicted for nonviolent crimes but have since gone for years without getting in trouble again.
Democrats have praised the Republican majority at the legislature for taking up these reforms, but some have also questioned why legislative leaders aren't doing more. On Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Jeff Jackson, D-Mecklenburg, said his Republican colleagues deserve a "sincere thanks" for passing the Second Chance Act, which he said is years overdue and will help tens of thousands of people every year. "When we do something in a bipartisan way, that's great," Jackson said. "But when we do it unanimously that's a clear signal that there's more to do in that space."
When the House took up the Second Chance Act last week, Democratic Rep. Ashton Clemmons, D-Guilford, also said there are numerous other criminal justice reform proposals, many with bipartisan support, that have never been allowed to come up for a vote. "We have much, much more work to do," she said. Neither of the bills advancing at the General Assembly deals with police reform, which has been a frequent request of protesters.
The other bill, the First Step Act, has now passed the Senate - for the second time - and it's now up to the N.C. House to debate and potentially send it to Cooper's desk, too. That law would allow judges to disregard mandatory minimum rules when sentencing low-level drug offenders in certain cases. Britt said it doesn't decriminalize any drugs but is meant to help people whom prosecutors can currently charge as drug traffickers, even if they never intended to sell any drugs.
Britt said Tuesday that in the Senate chamber, he shares the desk that Cooper used to have when he was a state senator in the 1990s, before he became the attorney general and then governor. From that desk, Britt said, Cooper personally sponsored many tough-on-crime drug bills that have since come to be seen as in need of reforms like the First Step Act. "I want to be clear," Britt said. "A vote for this conference report is a vote against many of Roy Cooper's mandatory minimum policies." However, that dig at the governor didn't stop Democrats from supporting the bill. It passed unanimously.
Broadband Gaps
KERI BROWN, WFDD RADIO, 6/16/20
Schools across the state are planning ahead for the possibility of continued remote learning. Education leaders say the pandemic has shown how deep the digital divide is for families in rural North Carolina. According to the most recent data from the Federal Communications Commission, about 14 percent of people in rural North Carolina don't have access to broadband, and more than 19 percent lack access to a faster speed tier.
Strother Bullins is a teacher in Stokes County. He says there are extra hurdles for these students, including traveling to a library, hotspot, or relative's house just to connect. "And it's really important for rural kids because they see all of these things going on and they see all of these things through social media but then they don't have the connection like everybody else does," says Bullins. "It limits the possibilities, and it limits the economic possibilities out here too for the parents."
Governor Cooper launched a task force last March to address the issue.
Two bills aimed at further expanding rural broadband infrastructure cleared the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. House Bill 1105 would use $30 million in federal coronavirus relief funding to expand the existing GREAT program, which provides grants to internet providers seeking help to expand into underserved communities. The new funding would allow for another round of grant awards to be issued by the end of the year. The bill would also make some changes to the qualifications for the grants.
House Bill 1205 aims to speed up the process for leasing state-owned facilities and property for new broadband infrastructure. It would require the Department of Administration or any other agency controlling a property to process lease requests within four months. And DOA would be required to work with the Department of Information Technology to "develop a streamlined lease development process, using state-of-the-art technology, including videoconferencing to facilitate and expedite the lease process."
"This is an obstacle that we can actually fix," said Rep. Dean Arp, R-Union and sponsor of the bill. Rep. Josh Dobson, R-McDowell, said the state is "not even close" to fixing the rural broadband problem, but "these incremental steps are going to make a difference in the long run."
DSS Investigation
KATE MARTIN, CAROLINA PUBLIC PRESS, 6/16/20
Darryl Brown, the county attorney in Cherokee County, says he is investigating whether Cindy Palmer, former head of the county's Department of Social Services, should keep her current job as DSS business officer. Brown's is the latest probe into Palmer's conduct while she ran the DSS. A Cherokee County grand jury indicted Palmer on several felony and misdemeanor counts for crimes that the N.C. Attorney General's Office said she committed. She also faces a charge of felony perjury for allegedly lying to a judge two years ago for her role in separating children from their families without getting a judge's approval.
The charges are the culmination of nearly two years of investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation, which ultimately netted Palmer's indictments and those of two other former DSS employees, encompassing more than three dozen felony and misdemeanor charges. The charges stem from the workers' coercive practice of using a so-called Custody and Visitation Agreement, or CVA, to separate children from families without judicial oversight. Palmer's attorney, Hart Miles, has said the agreements were in place years before she became director and she kept using them on the advice of then-DSS attorney Scott Lindsay, one of the others facing charges.
While the previous investigations have looked at operations of DSS, questions of criminal behavior and demands for civil damages, Brown's investigation focuses on her future as an employee of Cherokee County. Brown is also much closer to Palmer than other investigators. In addition to serving as county attorney, Brown is separately employed as Sheriff's Office attorney. Sheriff Derrick Palmer is Cindy Palmer's husband. Asked about Cindy Palmer's future after the investigation, Brown told Carolina Public Press that Palmer's employment status is protected by state statute. DSS Director Amanda McGee placed Palmer on 30-day investigative leave on May 18. The leave expires Wednesday unless extended further.
HCA Bailout
Karen Chávez, Asheville Citizen-Times, 6/16/20
HCA Healthcare, which owns six hospitals in Western North Carolina including Mission Health, is one of the world's "wealthiest" hospital chains and has remained so throughout the coronavirus pandemic. HCA has received about $1 billion in bailout funds since the start of the pandemic, making it the country's largest health care recipient of these funds through the economic stimulus package in the
federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES Act. The funds do not need to be repaid.
News of the bailout amount, cited in a recent New York Times study that described HCA as a wealthy hospital chain, brought criticism from some local HCA employees who question how the funds are being used. According to the New York Times study, which analyzed tax and securities filings by 60 of the country's largest hospital chains including HCA, the hospitals have received a total of more than $15 billion in emergency funds through the economic stimulus package in the federal CARES Act. The New York Times study found that employees complain HCA has not been providing adequate personal protective equipment to nurses, medical technicians and cleaning staff.
Mission spokeswoman Nancy Lindell said in a statement to the Citizen-Times that HCA is using some of its bailout money to provide adequate PPE, including universal masking that was put in place prior to CDC guidance.
DSS Rules
Danielle Battaglia, THE INSIDER, 6/18/20
Senators heavily questioned one of three proposed amendments in the Health Care Committee Wednesday for a bill that would prevent Department of Social Service workers from creating their own intake screening criteria that's more stringent than state rules. Sen. Chuck Edwards, R-Henderson, has received large support from his colleagues on Senate Bill 708 until he put forth an amendment Wednesday that would prevent DSS workers from claiming confidentiality as a means to stop further conversations from happening on a case - if that confidentiality didn't fall under federal or state guidelines.
Sen. Don Davis, D-Pitt, said he couldn't support the amendment because even he could be charged with a misdemeanor under the amendment if he believed something from DSS in his possession was confidential, and he did not provide it. Davis said that without the amendment, Edwards has his support. Others brought up similar concerns and questioned why the amendment was even necessary if federal and state guidelines provided a road map for those issues.
"I would withdraw this unless absolutely necessary to the bill," said Sen. Rick Horner, R-Nash. "I don't want this to be the impediment that kills your work." Ultimately Edwards garnered enough support for that amendment and two others. One of the amendments changes the name of the bill and makes a few technical changes. The other would require DSS to look into updating its training, last done in 2002, and look into using programs with real-world simulations.
Medicaid Policy Stakeholder Meeting - Draft CCP 8A & 8C Policy Changes (Outpatient Services)
NC Medicaid is developing new draft policy related to Clinical Coverage Policy 8A & 8C, Outpatient Services. This stakeholder meeting is being offered and requested with you or your organization to allow the communication of important feedback and/or questions. This communication will be used in the process of creating the new policy.
Medicaid Policy Stakeholders Meeting - Draft Opioid Treatment Services Policy Changes
NC Medicaid is developing
new draft policy
related to Opioid Treatment Services (OTP). This stakeholder meeting is being offered and requested of you to allow the communication of important feedback and/or questions. This communication will be used in the process of creating the new policy.
Please take a moment to review this new policy and provide any feedback you may have to Howard Anthony no later than June 29, 2020 at 5:00 pm.
Documents for review:
Legislative Highlights
Bills signed by the Governor
House Bill 1187
- Raise the Age Funding. This bill requires funding to implement Raise the Age statute.
Bill that passed House and Senate and awaiting Governor signature
Senate Bill 562
- The Second Chance Act. This bill makes various revision to the expunction laws of the state.
Bills on the Move
Senate Bill 808
- Medicaid Funding Act. This funds the cost for Medicaid Transformation along with money to:
- relocate DHHS from the Dorothea Dix Campus
- pay for the child welfare case management component for NC DSS
- pay for needed funds within the Division of Medicaid
- pay for MH/DD/SA funds
This bill passed the Senate and is now being heard in the House. We are hearing that the penalties for starting after July 1 2021 may be removed in an upcoming proposed committee substitute.
Senate Bill 730
- No Patient Left Alone Act. Provides patient visitation rights that will not be impacted during declared disasters and emergencies. This bill moved through Senate committees quickly this week and is expected to pass the Senate and move to the House by next week.
House Bill 1048/S708
- CPS Intake Screening/PED Recommendations. Requires DHHS to make policy changes as a means to improve the consistency of child protective services intake screening process.
The House version passed and is in the Senate. The Senate has also been meeting on their bill. Senator Edwards put forward a controversial amendment that passed in committee that allows legislator to request confidential DSS information and records. The amendment passed and is moving forward. Amendment below:
(b2) Except where prohibited by federal law and notwithstanding other applicable State law, a member of the North Carolina General Assembly may request access to confidential social services information and records from the Department or from a local department of social services when necessary for oversight of programs related to child protective services or adult protective services. Upon receiving a request from a member of the North Carolina General Assembly pursuant to this subsection, the Department or a local department of social services shall disclose confidential information and records concerning adult protective services and child protective services cases to the requesting member. A member of the North Carolina General Assembly may not retain copies of any part of the record, and all information shared pursuant to this subsection shall be withheld from public inspection and maintained in a confidential manner
House Bill 612
- DSS Review of Procedures/Criminal History/OAH. This bill requires the social services commission of NC DSS to review policies, guidelines and other interpretive statements (usually disseminated through the "Dear County Director Letters") and submit a report to the Office of Administrative Hearings to identify any that meet the requirements of "rule" and must go through the rule making process with the Rules Commission. It also allow for individuals who fee they have been injured by a policy or guideline that should have gone through the rule making process to file a challenge with the Office of Administrative Hearings.
This bill passed the House and went to the Senate that made changes to the bill and passed their amended version. The Senate sent their version to the House and now the Senate and House are working on agreeing to an amended version of the bill.
House Bill 918
- Expedite Permanency/DHHS Report SNAP/TANF. The intent of this bill is to move children, who are born with illegal substances in their system as a result of a mother using illegal substances, to permanency more quickly. The changes this bill seeks to drive permanency is controversial:
- Amends the definition of "non-relative kin" to include a presumption that a foster parent with whom a juvenile under 3 years of age has lived for at least nine months is nonrelative kin and adds a definition for "relative" to include an individual directly related to the juvenile.
- Clarifies that the term "abused juvenile" includes minors whose parents expose them to illegal drugs while in utero.
- Adds to the criteria for non-secure custody a condition providing if a juvenile is an infant who: 1) was born drug-exposed and the drug exposure was not medically based; 2) the parent is unable to discharge parental responsibilities due to a history of chronic drug abuse, and 3) there are reasonable grounds to believe that the parent's substance abuse will continue for a prolonged or indeterminate period based on the opinion of a licensed health care provider with substance abuse disorders experience, then the court will issue an order for non-secure custody.
- Adds the requirement that once a child under age 3 has lived with a foster parent for at least nine months, the foster parent is deemed to be non-relative kin.
This bill passed the House last session and was caught in Senate Rules committee last session. The bill suddenly appeared on the calendar and was passed out of Senate Rules on Thursday. Adds the requirement that once a child under age 3 has lived with a foster parent for at least nine months, the foster parent is deemed to be non-relative kin.
Benchmarks' Bill Tracker
