TennCare Connect

History

2024: Court rules defective $400 million U.S. IT benefit system

In late August 2024, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that thousands of Tennessee residents were illegally denied benefits and other benefits because of errors in software the state uses to determine eligibility for benefits for low-income residents and people with disabilities.

The TennCare Connect system, created by the company Deloitte and other contractors for more than $400 million, was supposed to analyze information about the income of state residents and their health status in order to automatically determine the right to receive benefits. Launched in 2019, the system was supposed to modernize existing methods for allocating benefits prescribed by the Affordable medical Service Act. Under the new rules, states had to provide a unified data processing system that would collect all necessary information about residents and determine which of the numerous complex health insurance and disability benefits programs they can apply for. However, in practice, it turned out that the system often does not "see" the relevant data, assigns benefits to the wrong people and makes incorrect decisions about the right to receive benefits.

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Gizmodo

The court decision was made based on the results of the consideration of a class action lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of 35 adults and children who were denied benefits.

It's a colossal victory that should help thousands of people who have lost vital health insurance because of TennCare's mistakes, said Michelle Johnson, executive director of the Tennessee Justice Center, one of several organizations representing the plaintiffs.

Deloitte is known to have become a major beneficiary of nationwide modernization as it won contracts to build automated benefit assessment systems in more than 20 states, including Tennessee and Texas. Patient rights groups have also asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Deloitte in Texas.^[1]

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