Tennessee Code Title 33. Mental Health and Substance Abuse and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities § 33-3-106

(a) If the head of the federally mandated protection and advocacy agency for persons with mental illness, serious emotional disturbance, or developmental disability, or the designated representative of the agency head, requests disclosure of information protected by § 33-3-103 and specifies the personally identifiable service recipient information sought and the federally mandated function for which it is required, the information may be disclosed to the agency without consent. The disclosure of information shall be made solely for use in connection with the federally mandated function. The disclosures are subject to federal confidentiality laws, including the requirement that there be no further disclosure of the personally identifiable information by the agency without consent of the service recipient or conservator or of the parent's or legal guardian's consent in the case of a child. The service provider shall notify the service recipient, a child service recipient's parent or legal guardian, and the service recipient's conservator, if any, of the disclosure. All public and private service providers shall cooperate with the agency in responding to requests, including, but not limited to, those made under the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1975 (42 U.S.C. § 6000 et seq.); the Protection and Advocacy for Mentally Ill Individuals (PAMII) Act of 1986 (42 U.S.C. § 10801 et seq.); and the Protection and Advocacy for Individual Rights Act (29 U.S.C. § 794e).

(b) If an organization may pay for a service provider's service to a service recipient, the service provider may disclose to the organization without service recipient consent only such information about the service recipient as is reasonably necessary to obtain timely payment. Disclosures are on the condition that there be no further disclosure of the personally identifiable information by the agency without service recipient consent.

(c) If the department determines that an emergency substantially impairs a provider's capacity to provide service to its service recipients and the department appoints a receiver for service recipient information, the service recipient's information may be transferred to a new service provider without service recipient consent.