Recovery scope
Probate-estate recovery covers nursing-facility and home-and-community-based services and related hospital and prescription-drug services received at age 55 or older, subject to the state plan's limits.
Controlling authority
Tennessee Medicaid State Plan Attachment 4.17-A
Exemptions and deferrals
Recovery is deferred while a surviving spouse lives and while there is a surviving child under 21 or blind or permanently and totally disabled. The plan also excludes claims of $10,000 or less as not cost-effective.
Hardship-waiver path
Hardship relief may protect a sole-income-producing family farm or business and qualifying caregiver siblings or children under the plan's stated conditions; an affected person may request a review of the finding.
Lien practice
Tennessee does not impose lifetime TEFRA liens; recovery proceeds as a third-priority claim against the probate estate.
Sources
Methodology & sources
Checked at least annually and whenever recovery statutes, waivers, liens, or agency practices change.
General information, not legal advice.