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Michelle Crouch
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Oct 14, 2026
Michelle Crouch, Reporter with North Carolina Health News
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0:28Lisa PriceHOST
Would you like to go into that, or do you want me to briefly explain what decision that came down to?
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0:33Michelle CrouchGUEST
Well, yeah, basically the judge yesterday sided with Atrium in, in this dispute between the state health plan, um, and, and Atrium.
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0:44Michelle CrouchGUEST
And so there are still some claims that, um, the state health plan has pending, so I'm expecting more court action to happen, but for right now, um, Atrium's program that we wrote about remains in place.
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2:13Lisa PriceHOST
Michelle, how did we get here? What changed about the state plan for 2027, and why, you know, was Atrium left out of the group of preferred p- providers? It seems like they would have wanted to be in those.
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2:27Michelle CrouchGUEST
So, well, the health plan covers about 750,000 teachers, state employees, retirees and their families.
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2:34Michelle CrouchGUEST
Um, and it's facing this huge financial crisis, something like a $1.5 billion deficit.
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2:42Michelle CrouchGUEST
And so to close that gap, the treasurer's office came up with this plan this year, and they basically said to all the hospitals, "If you give us better prices, we can send you more patients.