“Tell us who you are, where you live, and where you get your mail,” reads the first page of a TennCare Bureau questionnaire. Answers on the questionnaire determine the fate of continued state health-care coverage for 323,000 current TennCare recipients.
Recipients have 30 days to complete the surveys and return them to county Department of Human Services (DHS) offices. Once received, DHS officials will determine continued eligibility under TennCare Medicaid.
Those not meeting the qualification for the streamlined TennCare coverage are kicked off the plan via a letter from the bureau: “DHS looked at the facts and papers you gave them. They said you don’t qualify for Medicaid. Their letter to you said why. Your TennCare will end on <20 days after receiving the letter>.” Those likely to be cut include recipients 19 and older on the TennCare Standard program, uninsured and uninsurable adults eligible for coverage elsewhere, non-pregnant adults 21 and older in medically needy categories, and those covered under the federal Medicare program.
A possible reprieve still looms for 97,000 of the most medically needy recipients, but a long-debated consent decree must first be restructured.
