{"id":848287,"date":"2026-09-15T05:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T05:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/848287\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T05:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T05:30:08","slug":"wakemed-ceo-donald-gintzig-on-possible-atrium-merger-will-patients-pay-more-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/848287\/","title":{"rendered":"WakeMed CEO Donald Gintzig on possible Atrium Merger: Will patients pay more? :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>RALEIGH, N.C. \u2014 WakeMed, one of the state&#8217;s smallest hospital systems, is seeking to merge with Atrium Health, one of the country&#8217;s largest healthcare providers.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed merger requires approval from county commissioners. Critics have raised concerns that combining the systems will lead to higher healthcare costs.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), &#8220;cross-market&#8221; combinations\u2014where hospital systems in different markets form a larger system\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kff.org\/health-costs\/ten-things-to-know-about-consolidation-in-health-care-provider-markets\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">are typically associated with price increases ranging from 6% to 17%<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A similar dynamic played out in North Carolina in 2020 when Atrium Health combined with Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem. Data from Brown University&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cahpr.sph.brown.edu\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Center for Advancing Health Policy Through Research<\/a> shows that from 2020 to 2024, the average price of inpatient care for commercially insured patients at Wake Forest Baptist rose 28%. That same report found that across other North Carolina hospitals during the same period, the average increase was 20%.<\/p>\n<p>To get clarity, WRAL invited WakeMed CEO Donald Gintzig for a sit-down interview.<\/p>\n<p>During the discussion, Gintzig addressed how the combined system would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/news\/nccapitol\/wakemed-atrium-hospital-deal-delay-wake-county-politician-reaction-may-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">handle negotiations with major insurance providers, charity care, a proposed $2 billion investment, and more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. \u2014 WakeMed, one of the state&#8217;s smallest hospital systems, is seeking to merge with Atrium Health,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,9149,253,40280,146710,134299],"class_list":["post-848287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-care-costs","tag-healthcare","tag-in-depth","tag-wakemed","tag-wral-specialists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}