Category 2: Delivering Excellence in Digital Services
TENNCARE LONG TERM SERVICES AND SUPPORTS (LTSS)
State of Tennessee
Kristeena Ashby
Senior Assistant Deputy Chief of LTSS Operations
Caitlin Rogers
TennCare LTSS - Assistant Deputy Chief of Quality, Accountability, and Innovation
Karen Gonzalez
TennCare LTSS – Assistant Deputy of Clinical Operations
Dallas Dowell
TennCare LTSS – Assistant Deputy of Business Operations
Kathleen Livingstone
TennCare LTSS – Value Based Director
The TennCare Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) Team, led by Kristeena, is being honored in Category 2: Delivering Excellence in Digital Services for transforming medical eligibility through the creation of PERLSS, an innovative, centralized, and automated platform serving Tennessee’s most at-risk populations.
PERLSS (Pre-admission and Referrals for Long-term Services and Supports) digitized and unified 16 program groups across LTSS and the Department of Disability and Aging into a single, modular, cloud-hosted system. The platform streamlines medical eligibility evaluations, improves care timeliness and equity, and reduces administrative burden, benefiting over 50,000 Tennesseans, including the elderly, blind, and those with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
The team also introduced TennCare’s first AI chatbot to enhance staff training and policy research, and launched a Value-Based Purchasing initiative to improve care quality for members with advanced respiratory needs. Endorsed by CMS and adopted by other Medicaid systems, PERLSS has elevated TennCare as a national model for modern, data-driven long-term care services.