Press Releases

School staff, mental health professionals and the community can learn how to expand support for K-12 students and families experiencing mental and behavioral health issues in a webinar from 10 a.m. to noon, Wednesday, March 15. The webinar is hosted by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the i2i Center for Integrative Health.

Today, the Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood-PLUS (MCCYN-PLUS) initiative launches in North Carolina to make it easier for military families to access and afford quality child care from community providers. The program is funded and run by the U.S. Department of Defense and critical in our state as North Carolina is home to the fourth largest military presence in the nation.

North Carolina leaders are projecting shortages in direct care workers, nurses and other caregiving positions in the coming decade. At the same time, demand for these services is rising. To address this gap, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and the North Carolina Department of Commerce are leading North Carolina’s new Caregiving Workforce Strategic Leadership Council.

This is a momentous agreement that will directly improve the health and well-being of 600,000 North Carolinians. We applaud the efforts by the General Assembly to move this forward. Medicaid expansion will be transformative for access to health care in rural areas, for better mental health and for veterans, working adults and their families. For these people, today’s agreement is life changing.

Due to a change at the federal level, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will begin Medicaid beneficiary recertifications that could result in coverage termination or a reduction in benefits.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services today announced it has received approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to operate the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) program during the 2022-23 school year.

To ensure nearly 150,000 people seamlessly receive care on day one, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will delay the implementation of the NC Medicaid Managed Care Behavioral Health and Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities Tailored Plans. The launch was scheduled for April 1 and is now targeted for Oct. 1, 2023.

With overdose deaths in 2021 increasing 22%, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services continues to extend mobile crisis care, treatment programs and other efforts to improve behavioral health services across the state.

Building on its ongoing COVID-19 events, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will host a live fireside chat and tele-town hall on Wednesday, Feb. 22, from 6 to 7 p.m. to discuss the importance of heart health as well as heart disease prevention and management.

NCDHHS' Black Mountain Neuro-Medical Treatment Center will undergo large-scale renovations in mid-June of this year to increase resident capacity and privacy and upgrade outdated wings.

Babies born in North Carolina will now be screened for two additional disorders, along with the other disorders screened for by the NC Department of Health and Human Services’ Newborn Screening Program. Newborns will now be screened for two Lysosomal Storage Disorders — Mucopolysaccharidosis Type I (MPS I) and Pompe Disease.

NCDHHS is committed to empowering all individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities with the resources they need to live healthy, independent lives in communities of their choosing. That commitment is why we are appealing part of the court order in Samantha R. et al. vs. NCDHHS and the State of North Carolina, which would have put individuals at risk for harm. Today the court issued a stay in the order, temporarily stopping the order while the appeal moves forward.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services today announced a $4 million Preschool Development Grant that will help support children’s health and well-being, improve access to high-quality early care and learning for families across North Carolina, and invest in the state’s early care and learning workforce. NCDHHS will use the federal funding through the end of the year to enhance North Carolina’s Family Child Care Home (FCCH) network. This includes providing access to more professional training, tools to improve classroom curriculum and instruction and more family engagement opportunities for the FCCH workforce. This work will pilot new practices to improve the availability and quality of care for families served by the FCCH network.

Hundreds of people in North Carolina each day are waiting inside hospital emergency departments for behavioral health care. One reason is that a real-time list of operational beds isn’t available, which makes it difficult to connect people in emergency departments to care in more appropriate settings. To address the growing behavioral health crisis, the NC Department of Health and Human Services is today launching a new tool to help hospitals and other providers quickly find an open bed where people can get the behavioral health treatment they deserve.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will host a Spanish-language Cafecito and tele-town hall on Tuesday, Jan. 31, from 6 to 7 p.m. to discuss Mental Wellness, Aging Adults and the latest COVID-19 Information.

On April 1, 2023, approximately 55,000 children receiving NC Health Choice coverage will move to NC Medicaid and begin receiving additional physical and behavioral health services. This change will help save families money and increase access to care.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced it is proposing a change to blood donor eligibility by using gender-inclusive, individual risk-based questions to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted HIV.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will host a live fireside chat and tele-town hall on Wednesday, Jan. 25, from 6 to 7 p.m. to discuss Navigating Mental Wellness, Aging, Caregiving and the Impacts of COVID-19.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has awarded more than $3.2 million to nine colleges and universities across the state to increase access to recovery services and supports on campuses for students with substance use disorders. These awards address a growing need for behavioral health care among young adults and the Department’s top priority to improve Behavioral health and resilience in North Carolina.

In North Carolina and nationally, emergency allotments for COVID-19 in the Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) program will end in March 2023. Households that have been receiving extra FNS benefits (called "emergency allotments") each month since March 2020 or after will see a reduction in benefits because of a federal change that ends emergency allotments for all states.