TennCare Retains Enrollment Of 1.76M In August

Image Credit: Medicaid by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free

By Jon Styf [The Center Square] –

Tennessee projected its TennCare enrollment numbers to eventually drop from a high of nearly 1.8 million to 1.3 million, but those numbers have yet to show a significant drop due to the re-start of the eligibility determination program in April.

In August, TennCare had 1.76 million enrollees. The highest the number reached was 1.79 million in June.

Each month, TennCare releases enrollment numbers and an unwinding report, which looks at the status of those who were up for the eligibility checked referred to as “redetermination.”

The most recently release unwinding report was for May, when the process has occurred for just 163,000 enrollees with more than 92,000 renewed and 57,000 losing eligibility and 14,000 pending a determination.

During the budgeting process, TennCare Director Stephen Smith said the department didn’t ultimately know what the numbers would look like but knew that some would be deemed ineligible with many being referred to the health care marketplace with subsidized health care plans available.

Medicaid enrollment in the United States peaked at more than 100 million, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability, as COVID-19 health emergency rules blocked redetermination between March 2020 to March 31. That meant anyone who qualified once for the programs continued to be eligible until this year.

States are required to check Medicaid eligibility once every year.