LifePoint Health, the parent company of three regional hospitals in Western North Carolina, recently announced its plans to merge with RCCH Healthcare Partners.

Haywood Regional Medical Center, a Duke LifePoint Health hospital, has completed a 17-bed expansion to its behavioral health wing on the sixth floor.

From a geographical prospective, Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva is strategically located to serve as a health care hub for the most western counties in the region, but hospital leaders know it will take more than a convenient location for patients to consider it their go-to resource for services.

With the current expansion of its New Generations Family Birthing Center, Harris Regional Hospital couldn’t be in a better position to handle an anticipated influx of patients for labor and delivery services.

Barring an unforeseen breakdown in contract negotiations, the Haywood Healthcare Foundation will manage the estimated $20 million in funds that resulted from the sale of Haywood Regional Medical Center to Duke LifePoint in 2014.

After months of back-and-forth, Harris Regional Hospital and Jackson County have reached an agreement on the hospital’s tax value.

Two organizations hoping to manage an estimated $20 million in restricted funds resulting from the sale of Haywood Regional Medical Center to Duke LifePoint in 2014 made their case Oct. 17 to the Haywood County Board of Commissioners.

Harris Regional Hospital saw its tax value slashed by 36 percent in the minutes before Jackson County’s Board of Equalization Review adjourned for the year, and while its new $27.2 million value is still more than twice the $13 million the hospital had argued it was worth, it’s quite a drop from the original $42.3 million appraisal.  

The jury is still out on a property tax challenge being waged by Harris Regional Hospital, which claims its property is only worth a quarter of what the county says it is.

Haywood Regional Medical Center and county officials  are locked in a dispute over how much the hospital should pay in property taxes.