TennCare Down To 1.5M Members From Pandemic High Of 1.8M

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The Center Square [By Jon Styf] –

More than 400,000 TennCare participants have now been found to be ineligible for the program as it has gone through unwinding and an eligibility check post-pandemic.

Of the nearly 1.3 million who have had their eligibility checked since April 2023, the program found nearly 783,000 were still eligible through January, according to numbers released this week.

Of that, 500,000 participants were auto renewed and 278,000 were approved after an eligibility check.

More than 111,000 responded to TennCare’s renewal request, were deemed ineligible and were sent to the federal health care marketplace while more than 282,000 did not respond to requests for paperwork and 19,000 did not return additional requested information.

Overall, TennCare had 1.5 million participants in March, down from a peak of 1.8 million.

COVID-19 health emergency rules blocked redetermination between March 2020 to March 31 but states were then required to re-start the annual process.

TennCare has estimated that the numbers will be closer to 1.3 million participants after the one-year eligibility determination is complete.

Many of those who retained eligibility through the renewal checks were under the age of 19.

Of that age group, 484,638 were renewed, 125,728 lost eligibility and 41,214 are still pending. More than half of adults between ages 19 and 64 lost eligibility with 241,245 renewed and 249,540 losing eligibility.

In the most recent month of data, nearly 49,000 of the 105,000 who had eligibility checked were renewed with more than 22,000 still pending.

About the Author: Jon Styf, The Center Square Staff Reporter – Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies. Follow Jon on Twitter @JonStyf.