2024 Tennessee Disability Scorecard
WUOT’s Carole Myers: Sarah will help us understand what the grade means and what can be done to improve performance. Sarah, how did the scorecard come about and what's its purpose?
Sarah Sampson: There are about 1.7 million Tennesseans with a disability, everything from dyslexia to diabetes to depression to cancer and understanding what life is like here in Tennessee for all types of disabilities can be complex. We have created this scorecard since 2022 to put a letter grade on areas of life like transportation and access to care, mental health, education, so that we have an easy to understand way to think about the system of services and supports for Tennesseans with disabilities here.
The overall score has improved minimally across the three years the report has been produced. In 2024 three areas, family caregiving, support, access to care and housing, received grades of F and mental health access got a D-minus. Why are these poorest grades a concern to people with disabilities? Why do they matter?
Overall, this score of a D is not good. That's not what we want, but it is an accurate depiction of generally, for the average Tennessean with a disability, what it's like to try and navigate the basic areas of life, like transportation or access to care. Caregiver support is an area that I'd really like to focus on because there are many other states that have better infrastructure for families with a loved one with a disability to support that loved one living and thriving at home and in their own community. Many other states have options like the ability for a caregiver, like a parent of a child with a disability, to be paid to provide the daily living supports for their loved one with a disability, and that's necessary when we have such a market dearth of professionals who are able to, willing to, serve Tennesseans with disabilities in their home. So where there's such a high demand and such a low supply of professionals to provide these home and community based services for people with disabilities, the family member is having to step in instead. And the care for someone with a disability can be a full time job, a full time job that would be paid for by the system of services and supports in place in Tennessee, but we can't find a caregiver to pay to do that.
Tell us very briefly about what are the challenges as far as accessing care if you have a disability and live in Tennessee.
Often people with disabilities experience higher than average need for healthcare, and we have a large, beautiful, rural country in Tennessee with a real lack of access to healthcare, especially specialized services like therapies, speech therapy, physical therapy, and that means people go without.
Sarah, you've done a good job of beginning to paint a picture of challenges that people with disabilities in Tennessee face. Let's segue now to talking about what are your recommendations for improving things for Tennesseans with disabilities.
We added areas of homework, policy recommendations that could improve the system of services and support and the experience of disability here in Tennessee. One of those last year was a recommendation to create a pathway to Medicaid for working adults with disabilities, and the General Assembly passed a law doing just that.
This transcript has been lightly edited for content.
