Parity Enhancement for Addiction Recovery.

SB 566 updates North Carolina's health insurance laws to require equal coverage for substance use disorder treatment as for physical health conditions. It replaces outdated terms like "chemical dependency" with "substance use disorder" in state statutes and mandates that medical necessity determinations for addiction treatment must use the same clinical criteria applied to physical health conditions. This directly affects health insurers offering group plans and patients seeking addiction treatment, ensuring they face no stricter coverage limits than for other medical issues. The bill aligns North Carolina's requirements with federal mental health parity law (the Paul Wellstone Act) by explicitly including substance use disorders under coverage parity rules.