Cone Health will have some competition for its plans to build a $250 million hospital in the Alamance County portion of Mebane. Duke Health and Novant Health have put in a joint Certificate of Need request to build a $225 million hospital in Mebane.
Both hospitals would be approximately 46 beds.
In North Carolina, healthcare providers are required to obtain permission from the Department of Health and Human Services before offering new institutional health services. In this case, state regulators will look at the requests as competing proposals.
In March, Duke Health and Novant Health announced they would work together to develop new locations across the state to improve health outcomes. At the time, they did not mention any specific projects or financial details.
The hospital project in Alamance County — Duke Novant Mebane Hospital — appears to be the first such project.
“As part of our shared commitment to building healthier communities, Duke Health and Novant Health jointly filed a Certificate of Need application with the state of North Carolina to develop a new, 46-bed hospital in Alamance County. This facility would expand access to acute care services and clinical expertise in the region, including emergency department services, inpatient services, and labor and delivery care,” according to a statement from Duke Health.
Duke and Novant’s partnership is a combination of the state’s second-largest hospital operator (Novant had about $10 billion in annual revenue last year) and the third-biggest (Duke had $6.8 billion of revenue in fiscal 2024). Novant is a not-for-profit authority run by a board of directors, while Duke Health is part of Duke University, one of the most elite U.S. private universities.
Cone Health had $3.14 billion in revenue in 2024 and has more than 13,000 employees, 150 locations and more than 120 physician practices. Its largest hospital, the 628-bed Moses H. Cone Hospital is in Greensboro, along with Wesley Long Hospital and Cone Health Behavioral Health Hospital. It also has the 110-bed Annie Penn Hospital in Reidsville.
In December, Cone Health decided to become part of Washington, D.C.-based Risant Health. Risant pledged to invest as much as $1.7 billion and provide expertise in value-based care as part of the cashless transaction. Nonprofit system Kaiser Permanente launched Risant in April 2023.
The state’s Certificate of Need process usually takes between 90 and 150 days.