You know how it seems like you’re getting charged for more and more things every time you see a doctor? Well, you can possibly add to that growing list emailing your doctor with a simple question — about a medication refill, for example. That story appeared in the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter this week. The Ledger’s Tony Mecia joins me now to talk more about it and other stories for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: Really, Tony? I’m going to start getting charged for emailing my doctor a question about a prescription refill?
Tony Mecia: You might. It all sort of depends on what exactly you're emailing your doctor about. This is a case that our reporter, Michelle Crouch, who we work with through a partnership with North Carolina Health News, that she found out about. A Huntersville dad emailed his child's Novant pediatrician asking for a refill of a medication. The physician emailed back very quickly, and then he found this $41 charge. And, basically, what the hospital is trying to do is trying to pass along the cost of the doctor's time in evaluating the situation. They coded it as a telemedicine visit.
Terry: So why is Novant doing this now? And, are other hospital systems doing this, too?
Mecia: Well, there has been a trend over the last few years of hospital systems and doctors' offices trying to charge for emails with physicians. And they see it as a way to properly compensate their people's time.
Now this situation might be a little bit of an extreme. It was a four-sentence email composed in three minutes. I think there's room for interpretation there. It's all in sort of how these things are coded. Doesn't mean necessarily you're going to get charged every time you email your doctor. But if it takes the doctor some time, you might be.
Terry: All right. Let's stick with health care for a moment. You report Charlotte's OrthoCarolina, which is one of the biggest independent orthopedic practices in the country, says it's selling its physical therapy business to a private-equity-owned firm. What's behind that move?
Mecia: Yes, this is part of a bigger shift in the health care industry in which you have some companies backed by private equity interested in buying at least parts of medical practices. In this case, OrthoCarolina is close to a deal with a company called PT Solutions Physical Therapy to sell its physical therapy business. And it says this could be a way for it to focus more on, sort of, what is its core, which is orthopedic surgeries, that kind of thing. Or you might recall last year Tryon Medical sold a portion of its business side of its operations to a private-equity-backed company. So this is just another step in that move.
Terry: All right. On to retail news now. The growth of booze sales in Mecklenburg is starting to slow, reversing a pandemic-era trend. What's behind the liquor sales slump? And, do you think the recent spate of snow days and parents at home with their kids might reverse it?
Mecia: Well, that certainly could cause some drinking, I'm sure. But Marshall, I talked to the leaders of the local Mecklenburg ABC system. And I looked at some of the numbers for liquor sales at ABC stores in Mecklenburg County. And in 2024, liquor sales in Mecklenburg were up 2.5%. The last couple years before that, they were up 7.8% and 16.4%. The leaders of the ABC system say the sales are slowing down a little bit. They say it's just related to other things going on in the economy. People are buying smaller bottles of liquor, or they're maybe not getting that top-shelf liquor like they used to. They say that coming out of COVID there was strong sales as people returned to restaurants and bought liquor there. But that that sort of started to even out and settle down.
Terry: Finally, one of Charlotte's top tourist attractions says it wants to expand. What does the U.S. National Whitewater Center have in mind?
Mecia: Marshall, at a meeting last week of a county parks commission, the CEO of the Whitewater Center, Jeff Wise, said that he would like the Whitewater Center to add a leadership development center, a conference facility someplace where there could be events. He said it'd be about a $25 million project. They're working on a 500-acre bike facility in Abingdon, Va., as well as exploring the possibility of an additional Whitewater Center in the Raleigh area.
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