AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 71, relative to TennCare.
HB0782 amends Tennessee’s TennCare statutes to create a new part governing Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE). The bill directs the TennCare bureau to authorize one additional PACE program as a pilot in one of the two grand divisions where no PACE program existed in 2024. It sets out application requirements for prospective providers, including a letter of intent, proposed service area and site location, and a market analysis showing eligible population, projected enrollment, and unmet need.
The bill also requires the TennCare director to verify that applicants meet federal PACE requirements under 42 CFR Part 460 and are qualified to serve the proposed area. TennCare must ensure managed care organizations and options counseling entities consider PACE before referring individuals to nursing facilities or other long-term care settings, and it must oversee quality and performance standards, monitor reporting, and submit an annual PACE report to legislative leaders beginning January 1, 2026. The director is also authorized to adopt rules to implement the new part.
In addition, the bill creates a narrow geographic expansion rule for existing PACE programs. If a PACE program exists in a county with a population between 366,200 and 366,300, the service area may expand into certain contiguous counties that fall within specified population ranges. This provision appears tailored to specific counties based on the 2020 census or a later census.
The bill’s impact is to expand access to long-term care alternatives for frail elderly Tennesseans by adding a pilot PACE program and allowing limited service-area growth. It affects TennCare administration, provider certification, managed care referral practices, and reporting obligations, while leaving implementation details to agency rulemaking and federal PACE standards.
Overall sentiment around the bill appears strongly favorable and noncontroversial. It advanced through every committee and floor stage with unanimous or near-unanimous support, and the available vote history shows no recorded opposition. The lack of committee transcript material suggests there was little public contention, and the bill’s passage on consent calendar further indicates broad agreement.
The main point of contention, if any, is structural rather than political: the bill tightly defines where the pilot and expansion may occur, which could raise questions about geographic fairness or whether the criteria are designed to target specific localities. However, no recorded debate or dissent in the provided history shows that this became a significant issue.
HB0782 adds a new TennCare statutory part in Title 71 establishing a framework for an additional PACE pilot program, provider application standards, agency oversight, annual legislative reporting, and rulemaking authority. It also creates a population-based exception allowing certain existing PACE programs to expand into specified contiguous counties, thereby affecting TennCare operations, long-term care referral practices, and the availability of elder care services in selected areas.
The bill appears to have been received very positively. It moved through subcommittee, committee, and floor votes with unanimous support at each recorded stage and passed on consent calendar, indicating broad bipartisan agreement and little visible resistance. No committee transcripts were provided, but the voting record suggests the measure was viewed as a routine or beneficial TennCare expansion.
There is no documented substantive opposition in the provided record. The only potentially contentious feature is the bill’s highly specific population-based geographic language, which appears to limit the pilot and expansion to particular counties and may be seen as tailored to certain regions. Even so, the unanimous votes and lack of recorded debate indicate that this did not generate notable controversy during consideration.