The lazy, hazy days of summer are definitely not lazy or hazy when it comes to health planning in North Carolina. At this point in the year, the draft State Medical Facilities Plan (SMFP) has been published, and the summer petitioning season to adjust need determinations is in full swing. The SMFP determines which CON applications can be filed in 2025 for certain regulated health care services, such as beds, operating rooms, and medical equipment such as MRI scanners, PET scanners, linear accelerators, and cardiac catheterization equipment. The petitioning process ensures public participation in the development of the SMFP. Healthcare providers are often in the best position to know whether a need methodology used by the State is adequately addressing the need for certain services. In some cases, the methodology may be understating the need, while in others, the methodology may be overstating the need. In many cases, need determinations are based on a county need (e.g., Forsyth County) while in other cases, need determinations are based on multi-county health service areas (HSA), of which there are six in North Carolina. When the petitioning process is completed in August, Agency staff will prepare their recommendations to the State Health Coordinating Council and its committees. A proposed final SMFP will be submitted in the fall to the Governor for signature. Under North Carolina law, the Governor has final authority over the SMFP. The 2025 SMFP will take effect on January 1, 2025. 

First things first: Key Deadlines:

Petitions

• July 24, 2024, at 5 p.m.: Deadline for submission of petitions
• August 7, 2024, at 5 p.m.: Deadline for responses to petitions

These are absolute deadlines that cannot be changed.

Public hearing schedule: (all hearing start at 1:30 p.m. eastern and last one hour)

• July 8, 2024
• July 10, 2024
• July 16, 2024
• July 18, 2024
• July 22, 2024
• July 24, 2024

Public hearings are hosted online, view here.

Proposed need determinations for 2025:

Acute Care Beds:

• Alamance: 46
• Buncombe/Graham/Madison/Yancey: 129
• Cabarrus: 126
• Durham/Caswell/Warren: 82
• Mecklenburg: 211
• Pender: 43
• Union: 136
• Vance/Warren: 30
• Wake: 267

Operating Rooms:

• Davidson: 2
• Mecklenburg: 5
• Pitt/Greene/Hyde/Tyrrell: 5

Adult Care Home Beds:

• Ashe: 80
• Perquimans: 100
• Person: 140

Fixed Cardiac Catheterization Equipment:

• Haywood: 1
• Henderson: 1
• Johnston: 1

MRI:

• Alamance: 1
• Catawba: 1
• Durham/Caswell/Warren: 1
• Forsyth: 1
• Guilford: 1
• Mecklenburg: 1
• Moore: 1
• Nash: 1
• New Hanover: 1
• Onslow: 1
• Union: 1
• Wake: 1
• Wayne: 1
• Wilkes: 1

Dedicated Fixed PET Scanners:

• HSA I: 1
• HSA II: 1
• HSA IV: 2

Services for which no need is shown in the draft 2025 SMFP:

• Burn Intensive Care Services
• Bone Marrow Transplantation Services
• Inpatient Rehabilitation Beds
• Dialysis units via County Need Determination Methodology
• Nursing home beds
• Medicare-certified Home health agencies
• Hospice Home Care Offices
• Hospice Inpatient Beds
• Linear accelerators
• Lithotriptors
• Shared Fixed Cardiac Catheterization equipment