WS Chronicle

Building on its industry leading financial assistance and navigation services, Novant Health is expanding its financial assistance eligibility criteria for patients receiving care at its North Carolina hospitals and outpatient hospital departments. The changes, which take effect Jan. 1, 2025, will increase access to discounted and no-cost care for North Carolina residents. The health system is also working to relieve outstanding medical debt for qualifying low-income patients.  

Novant Health’s financial assistance program for hospitals and their outpatient departments, which previously assisted uninsured patients with an annual income up to 300% of the federal poverty level, will expand to include insured patients who meet the same income criteria. 

All patients will continue to benefit from financial navigators, price estimator tools, and interest-free payment plans to help them manage the cost of care. Additional information and the updated policy will be available Jan. 1 at NovantHealth.org/FinancialAssistance.   

“The well-being – financial, physical and emotional – of our patients guides every decision we make at Novant Health, and we’re constantly evolving our services and policies to build the healthier future our patients deserve,” said Alice Pope, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Novant Health. “Ensuring patients have access to the care they need, regardless of their ability to pay, is foundational to Our Cause, and we look forward to ushering in the new year with this expanded policy, which will help even more patients.”

Novant Health is also participating in a new medical debt mitigation initiative established by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS). The initiative enables relief for certain existing medical debts and extends medical debt prevention measures for qualifying patients.

The medical debt relief applies to: 

*Medicaid enrollees who have outstanding medical debt dating back to Jan. 1, 2014, that is owed to participating hospitals 

*Other low-income patients with incomes at least at or below 350% of the federal poverty level, or for whom total medical debt owed to a participating hospital exceeds 5% of income 

The medical debt of eligible patients will be adjusted automatically. No application or additional information is required from patients. Eligible patients will receive a letter from Undue Medical Debt when qualifying medical debts are relieved as part of the NC DHHS initiative. 

More information may be found on the on the NC DHSS website.