AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 71, relative to a pilot project for home- and community-based long-term care.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:

SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 71, is amended by adding the following as a new section to be appropriately designated:

Section ___. (a) The Commissioner of Health shall enter into a grant agreement for a pilot project with Senior Citizen's, Inc., involving managed home and community-based long-term care services for elderly citizens. The pilot project shall be based in a major urban county with a metropolitan form of government and a contiguous suburban county. The pilot project may only serve those persons in the project area who would be eligible for nursing home admission under the Medicaid program, under title 71, chapter 5. The project shall provide services to two hundred (200) elderly citizens annually to enable them to continue living in their homes. It shall seek to demonstrate the degree to which managed home- and community-based long-term care services for elderly citizens is cost-effective. The project shall seek to determine the range, scope, duration, and intensity of services required by elderly citizens so that the project may be replicated on a statewide basis. The commissioner shall evaluate the project on an ongoing basis. There shall be a report on the costs of the project in relation to other forms of care. Such report shall address costs at the beginning, during and at the end of the project. At appropriate times the commissioner shall report the results of this evaluation to the Senate General Welfare Committee.

(b) The pilot project shall not be part of any federal waiver project which may currently exist in the department.

(c) The provisions of this act shall not be construed to be an appropriation of funds, and no funds shall be obligated or expended pursuant to this act unless such funds are specifically appropriated by the General Appropriations Act.

SECTION 2. This act shall take effect July 1, 1998, the public welfare requiring it.