Vaya Health restructures

Vaya health, the public managed care organization for Western North Carolina, recently absorbed Cardinal Care-adding 9 additional counties to its coverage area. Given the growth of the organization, it has restructured its governing boards.

As an LME, Vaya is a managed care organization that manages public funding for Medicaid, federal, state and local funding for services and supports related to mental health, substance use disorder and intellectual/developmental disabilities.

Shelly Foreman with the Western district was before the Swain County Board of Commissioners on Thursday, Nov. 18 to share information about the new governing structure. To begin, she thanked Commissioner Kevin Seagle for serving on the commissioners advisory board and Swain County Manager Kevin King for his service on Vaya's board of directors.

With the additional counties in its network, Foreman said the directors wanted to "look at the government structure to insure responsiveness."

The new structure will have four regions with Region A being the 7 southwestern counties including Swain. Each region will have a regional advisory council and two from each council will serve on the Vaya board of directors, along with four appointed from the family and consumer advisory board, one appointed by the North Carolina Secretary and eight at-large along with three non-voting members with state and national expertise.

On Thursday, Swain commissioners unanimously agreed to appoint Seagle and King to serve as on the board for the county.