WRAL Investigates delays in a Medicaid upgrade costing taxpayers and impacting patients

North Carolina received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding in 2018 to upgrade its Medicaid system. The cost of that system has at least doubled, according to state auditors, and it’s still not online.

Former Department of Health and Human Services IT worker Rob Morehead was there at the beginning of the implementation. He raised red flags about what he felt was mismanagement of the project that led to delays and a ballooning cost. His concerns cost him his job. The state agency fired him.

Fast forward to 2024. Morehead won his Whistleblower lawsuit against the state’s Department of Information Technology, the agency’s leader, Jim Weaver and Morehead’s former boss at DHHS, Charles Carter.

“[It's] definitely a victory,” Morehead told WRAL Investigates reacting to the monetary settlement he received. “Once you see the evidence stacked up against you, it pretty much sets the stage for a settlement.”

WRAL Investigates first interviewed Morehead in 2022 after he filed his lawsuit based on the North Carolina Whistleblower Protection Act. He also sued for wrongful termination and defamation of character. A judge dismissed the last two claims, but ruled Morehead could sue under the Whistleblower Act.

“When we see a wrong, we try to make it right,” Morehead said. He was working for DHHS when the state got more than $250 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services...

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