TennCare — which provides health coverage for about 1.5 million Tennesseans — failed to properly evaluate the eligibility of thousands of families, intentionally withheld information those families needed to have their coverage reinstated, and “sat on its hands for months before it fixed system-wide errors that … resulted in wrongful terminations of disabled individuals,” according to U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw’s ruling.
A class of 35 children and adults who had been terminated from TennCare filed the class-action suit in 2020, alleging that flaws in TennCare’s eligibility determination process caused around 250,000 children to lose coverage because of paperwork issues.
As Tennessee’s Medicaid program, TennCare is the main health coverage provider for people in rural areas, people with disabilities, children and the elderly, according to the Tennessee Justice Center, a nonprofit that is among the attorneys representing the plaintiffs.
“Poor, disabled and otherwise disadvantaged Tennesseans should not require luck, perseverance, or zealous lawyering to receive healthcare benefits they are entitled to under the law,” the ruling states. Those who lacked those “apparent prerequisites” and have not yet had their coverage reinstated and backdated “more likely than not faced both financial hardships and adverse health outcomes on account of TennCare’s unlawful actions.”
Reached via email Monday, TennCare Communications Director Amy Lawrence said TennCare is “still reviewing the lengthy opinion and determining what our next steps will be,” but declined to comment further on a pending legal matter.
