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Whether it be strep throat, a sports injury or a sexually transmitted infection, getting sick in college is rough.
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And this fall, sick students at UNC-Chapel Hill are encountering a different student health experience than in years past.
In a new arrangement, UNC Health now runs student health services at UNC-Chapel Hill — and so far, the major health system says this new responsibility is just what the doctor ordered. But some students are raising alarm bells about “a big healthcare corporation running a clinic,” says student body president Devin Duncan.
The day-to-day experience of seeking and receiving healthcare on campus hasn’t drastically transformed, according to Amir Barzin, a UNC Health physician who worked closely on the student health transition.
But the processes for managing appointments, accessing medical records, and billing insurance have changed. Now, students must create a MyChart account — though the school emphasized an account is not necessary to schedule an appointment.
The MyChart implementation has drawn the ire of some students, including Duncan, who calls it a new — and in his view, unnecessary — “friction point.”
“Every student, during some of the busiest times of these first few weeks of the semester, will have to create a MyChart account, and then separately schedule an appointment,” Duncan said. “Sometimes friction like this is enough for a student to say: ‘You know what, I’m not going to go get checked out.’”
Duncan also points out that students must now call an 800 number if they have questions about billing.
Currently, the student health clinic is only open for half-days on Saturdays due to staffing shortages, according to UNC Health spokesperson Alan Wolf. In the coming weeks, the system hopes to remedy those shortages and stay open all day on Saturdays.
In August, Campus Care at Carolina saw 4,630 student visits. The average wait time for a new patient was 0.5 days for primary care and 1.6 days for sports medicine, with a no-show rate of 4.5%.
The campus health transition didn’t result in any layoffs, according to UNC Health, instead involving collaboration with the university to “strategically redeploy” employees and “ensure they remained in functions essential to student life.” Nearly 140 full-time employees, including sports medicine staff, serve the students.
Plus, students now have access to the wide range of specialists at UNC Health through virtual consultations between those specialists and primary care providers, according to Barzin.
Part of the appeal for UNC Health is that it brings young people into the UNC Health system, who are then more likely to continue seeing UNC Health doctors after graduation. Barzin says that’s a plus for students too.
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It provides “a seamless integration for them to be able to have that common electronic medical record that they carry with them … [from] the time when they’re in college to the time when they transition into adulthood,” he said.
It also works the other way: if a student grew up going to UNC Health, they’re already automatically in the system.
Some students, this early in the semester, aren’t even aware the change occurred. Others, like studio art major Dante McIntyre, are suspicious of it. McIntyre didn’t mince words when he called the switch “just another grift by the university to continue to squeeze every last penny from vulnerable students.”
UNC’s mental healthcare provider, known as CAPS, will still be operated by the university — not UNC Health. That’s because it’s responsible for a number of community-based support services that verge into the nonmedical, like academic accommodations, group therapy and 24/7 crisis hotlines.
But if a student’s mental health condition were to reach an untenable point, that could still be escalated to specialists at UNC Health, Barzin said.
The campus health fee didn’t change this school year, Barzin said, and what is covered by the fee and by insurance isn’t changing either.
“UNC Health will bill insurance for services and is an in-network provider with the University-administered (Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina) plans as well as most other plans used by students,” the university’s FAQ page about the transition reads. “After insurance, the health fee will then cover the same services that it has in the past.”
UNC Health says the vast majority of visits so far this school year were covered by insurance, with 5.7% of visits paid for out of pocket. There’s been no significant change in that percentage compared to last year, Barzin said.
For example, “some students choose to self-pay because they don’t want people to know they’re getting an STI test,” he clarified.
UNC Health sends itemized invoices and statements to the guarantor on insurance plans, meaning that in many cases, parents will know that their student went to the doctor — and what for. Barzin says that’s standard practice.
There are checkpoints and regular meetings scheduled to analyze UNC Health’s operation of the campus clinic, Barzin says, so his work here isn’t done.
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This story was originally published September 18, 2026 at 5:00 AM.