Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: In Tennessee, a Medicaid nursing-facility resident’s Personal Needs Allowance is $70.00/Month; the amount of their own income they keep for personal use each month, with the rest going to the facility as the patient-pay amount toward the cost of care. That is well above the $30/month federal floor set in 1988 and never raised since. State of Tennessee, Public Chapter No. 986 (House Bill No. 2321, 2024), amending Tenn. Code Ann. Section 71-5-147 states the figure directly.
Why Tennessee’s figure isn’t the federal floor
Federal Medicaid law requires only a $30-a-month personal needs allowance as a floor; a state is free to set its own, higher figure by statute, regulation, or agency policy. Tennessee has done exactly that, setting $70.00/Month, effective January 1, 2025.
What the allowance covers, and what it doesn’t
The personal needs allowance pays for the things a facility’s daily rate doesn’t cover: clothing, haircuts, snacks, a phone or television, small personal purchases. It is deducted before the rest of a resident’s income is applied to the facility bill as the patient-pay (or post-eligibility treatment of income, PETI) amount. It is not extra money on top of what Medicaid already pays the facility; it is the one slice of a resident’s own income that Medicaid rules guarantee the resident, not the facility, keeps.
One exception or caveat worth knowing
An earlier TennCare CHOICES policy manual (dated August 2024) still showed the pre-2025 figure of $50/month; the statute itself (this source) is authoritative and controls.
| Citation | State of Tennessee, Public Chapter No. 986 (House Bill No. 2321, 2024), amending Tenn. Code Ann. Section 71-5-147 |
| What it says | “a deduction shall be made from the person’s total income in the amount of seventy dollars ($70.00) per month to be treated as a personal needs allowance within the meaning of applicable federal regulations.” |
Every citation on this page was read directly from the state’s own Medicaid agency, administrative code, or official eligibility manual this session. General information, not legal or financial advice; a figure this specific can change with a budget cycle or a rule amendment, and a facility or state caseworker has the final say on any individual case.