Behavioral Health Feasibility Study in North Carolina

North Carolina uses SBA for behavioral health and addiction treatment more than the nation does. The state recorded 30 approvals from FY2017 to FY2026, worth $8.7 million, ranking 14 of 52 among states, and the location quotient of 1.16x reads as a heavier reliance on SBA credit for the class than the country shows. Within North Carolina the class ranks only 20 of 39 by asset class, and its median of $170,500 is 0.57x the national class median, and half of loans fall between $53,750 and $324,000. These are small practices and clinics, not facility-scale builds.

Program split and county spread

SBA 7(a) accounts for 25 of the loans and SBA 504 for 5, and franchising is 6.7% of loans. This page has no lender table for the class, so it does not rank lenders. Counties tell the clearer story: MECKLENBURG and WAKE each have 7 loans, FORSYTH 3, and BUNCOMBE, CATAWBA and DURHAM 2 each, with ANSON, CABARRUS, CHATHAM and FRANKLIN at 1. The two big metro counties hold about as many loans as the rest of the list combined, while rural counties are thinly represented.

The approval series and what is withheld

FY2020 reached 5 loans worth $3.8 million, the dollar peak for the period, and FY2024 had the most loans at 6 with $1.1 million. FY2025 fell to a single loan of $18,000, and In FY2026 the class had no approvals at all, so the $0 reflects the full year. Because year totals are so small, one practice can change a trend. Loan Analytics also withholds the cancellation and charge-off rates, because its own presentation rule is to print no rate on fewer than 30 loans; no number is shown and none should be read as nil.

Limits of the code and the study to commission

The two topics, behavioral health and addiction treatment, cannot be separated, since both share the same industry codes. A borrower should therefore not read this page as a measure of residential addiction treatment alone; outpatient counseling and substance-use clinics are mixed in. A feasibility study for a North Carolina project has to define the service line, the licensure it needs and the payer mix it expects, and it must test reimbursement alongside demand. It should test patient volume against clinician capacity and recruitment, the lease or build cost against a ticket that is usually small, and debt service coverage on a ramp in which referrals and credentialing delay the first collections. An appraiser will look at the real estate apart from the practice that occupies it, so the study should show the building's worth with a different tenant in it.