Tennessee Code Title 68. Health, Safety and Environmental Protection § 68-1-903

(a) The enforcement of this part shall in no way interfere with or supersede any existing law or cooperative federal, state or local program carried on under the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 301 et seq.), or other federal acts, or any other state, federal or local law.

(b) Nothing in this part shall apply to or affect medical care or medical service furnished wards of the state, who are inmates of any state institution, such as state prisons, mental health institutes, developmental centers, home for the blind, homes for the deaf, or juvenile correction institutions, but this part shall apply with respect to medical care or medical service furnished at public expense to any other person not an inmate of a state institution having an established and organized medical staff in regular attendance upon the inmates of the institution; it being the purpose of this part to coordinate, improve and better supervise the expenditure of public funds appropriated and designed for medical care and medical service to citizens of the state generally, who under future laws shall become entitled to receive medical care or medical service at public expense under the proposed national program of medical care; and is not intended to interfere with or interrupt the established and organized routine or special medical care and medical service rendered by the state to its wards regularly residing in any sort of state institution.