Health, Dept. of

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not provide information on the bill's impact or effectiveness, leaving these points unsupported and removed from the summary.

Healthcare Reporting Act

This bill requires hospitals accepting Medicaid to ask patients about their citizenship status and report data on hospital admissions and emergency visits by citizens, non-citizens, and those who decline to answer.

What This Bill Does

• Requires hospitals that accept Medicaid to include questions about patient citizenship status on admission or registration forms.
• Hospitals must submit quarterly reports to the Department of Health with statistics on hospital admissions and emergency department visits based on patients' reported citizenship statuses.
• The Department of Health is required to provide an annual report to the governor, senate speaker, and house speaker detailing information related to uncompensated care for non-citizens and other relevant data.

Who It Names or Affects

• Hospitals that accept Medicaid
• The Tennessee Department of Health
• Patients seeking hospital care

Terms To Know

Uncompensated Care

Medical services provided to patients who cannot pay for them.

Medicaid

A government program that helps certain people and families with low incomes pay for medical care.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify what actions will be taken based on the reported data.
• It is unclear how hospitals will ensure accurate responses to citizenship questions.

Official Summary Text

By July 1, 2026 and by July 1 of each subsequent year, this bill requires
the department of health
to
submit to the governor, the
senate
speaker, and the
house
s
peaker a report of the total number of hospital admissions and emergency department visits for the previous year for which the patient or patient's representative reported that the patient
was (i) a
citizen of the United States or lawfully present in the U
nited States
, (ii) n
ot lawfully present in the United States
, and (iii) d
eclined to answer.

The report must describe information relating to the costs of uncompensated care for a person who is not lawfully present in the United States, the impact of uncom
pensated care on the cost or ability of hospitals to provide services to the public, hospital funding needs, and other related information.

This bill requires each
hospital that accepts
medicaid to include such question on a p
atient's admission or regist
ration forms
. The question must be
followed by a statement that the response will not affect patient care or result in a report of the patient's citizenship status to law enforcement or to the bureau of immigration and customs enforcement of the United St
ates department of homeland security.
Such hospitals must report, w
ithin 30 calendar days after the end of each quarter, to the department of health with the number of hospital admissions and emergency department visits with
the responses from
the previou
s
quarter.

This bill authorizes t
he department of health to promulgate rules to effectuate this
bill
.
However, the
rules
must
not require the disclosure of patient names or other personal identifying information to the department of health.

Current Bill Text

HOUSE BILL 144
By Zachary

SENATE BILL 139
By Lowe

SB0139
001193
- 1 -

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 33;
Title 68 and Title 71, relative to healthcare.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 68, Chapter 1, Part 1, is amended by
adding the following as a new section:
(a)
(1) Each hospital that accepts medicaid must include on a patient's
admission or registration forms a provision for the patient or the patient's
representative to indicate whether the patient is:
(A) A citizen of the United States;
(B) Lawfully present in the United States; or
(C) Not lawfully present in the United States.
(2) The provision must be followed by a statement that the response will
not affect patient care or result in a report of the patient's citizenship status to law
enforcement or to the bureau of immigration and customs enforcement of the
United States department of homeland security.
(b) Within thirty (30) calendar days after the end of each quarter, each hospital
that accepts medicaid shall submit a report to the department of health with the number
of hospital admissions and emergency department visits within the previous quarter that
were made by a patient who:
(1) Was:

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(A) A citizen of the United States or lawfully present in the United
States; and
(B) Not lawfully present in the United States; and
(2) Declined to answer.
(c)
(1) On or before July 1, 2026, and on or before July 1 of each
subsequent year, the department of health shall submit to the governor, the
speaker of the senate, and the speaker of the house of representatives a report
of the total number of hospital admissions and emergency department visits for
the previous year for which the patient or patient's representative reported that
the patient:
(A) Was:
(i) A citizen of the United States or lawfully present in the
United States; and
(ii) Not lawfully present in the United States; and
(B) Declined to answer.
(2) The report must describe information relating to the costs of
uncompensated care for a person who is not lawfully present in the United
States, the impact of uncompensated care on the cost or ability of hospitals to
provide services to the public, hospital funding needs, and other related
information.
(d) The department of health is authorized to promulgate rules to effectuate this
section. The rules must be promulgated in accordance with the Uniform Administrative
Procedures Act, compiled in title 4, chapter 5. Any rules promulgated by the department

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of health to effectuate this section must not require the disclosure of patient names or
other personal identifying information to the department of health.
SECTION 2. For purposes of promulgating rules, this act takes effect upon becoming a
law, the public welfare requiring it. For all other purposes, this act takes effect July 1, 2025, the
public welfare requiring it.