Alabama · takes effect 2026-10-01
Ala. Act No. 2026-589, § 1 (SB 63)
Artificial intelligence in utilization review. Four duties sit in this section, and every one of them names the same bearer — the health benefit plan provider. What sets the act apart is not the human in the loop. It is what the human is required to be.
§ 1(b)(3)
named in the operative sentence a determination to deny, delay, or modify a request for prior authorization based on medical necessity shall always be made by a licensed physician or other health care professional who is competent to evaluate any recommendation or conclusion of artificial intelligence
Read the last clause twice. Most instruments in this registry stop at a licensed physician or health care professional must decide. Alabama adds “who is competent to evaluate any recommendation or conclusion of artificial intelligence” — a qualification about the reviewer, not the review. A signature from someone who cannot judge the model does not satisfy this provision.
§ 1(b)(2)
answers to the regulator A health benefit plan provider shall certify annually to the department that the artificial intelligence used to make determinations of medical necessity on requests for prior authorization complies with all of the following
The duty does not stop at the plan’s own files. It runs outward, once a year, to the department. Of the instruments read here, this is the rare one where the bearer has to say so to someone on a fixed cadence.
§ 1(c)(1)
named in the operative sentence A health benefit plan provider shall do all of the following: (1) Make prominent written disclosure regarding its use of artificial intelligence in utilization review in its policies and procedures.
The disclosure is about the plan’s own use of AI in utilization review, in its policies and procedures. It is not a duty on your clinician, and it is not a notice to you at the moment your claim is decided.
§ 1(c)(2)
named in the operative sentence Ensure that its use of artificial intelligence and the outcomes that it generates are reviewed on a periodic basis to maximize accuracy and reliability to ensure its use of artificial intelligence in utilization review complies with the requirements of subsection (b).
Periodic review of the outcomes the model generates — an obligation that recurs rather than one that is discharged once at procurement.
How this page knows what it says
- Document read
- The enrolled act, SB63-enr.pdf, served by ALISON. Four provisions of § 1 touch artificial intelligence; each sentence below is quoted from that file.
- Act number and signature
- Read in the image of the act filed with the Alabama Secretary of State — Act No. 2026-589, approved 16 April 2026 at 9:00 a.m. Aggregators report 17 April; the primary record says 16 in three independent places. The enrolled file alone does not carry the act number; the citation above rests on the Secretary of State’s image, not on the enrolled text.
- Verbatim
- Tested character by character against the retained source file. The test proves the quote matches that file. It does not prove the file is the version in force.
- What the act does not reach
- A scan of the whole act returns zero for vendor, developer, deployer, supplier and contractor. The duty stays with the plan; where the model came from is not this statute’s question.
- Accessed
- 2026-09-17 · https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/files/pdf/SearchableInstruments/2026RS/SB63-enr.pdf