Vincent Pinkney

Vincent Pinkney currently serves as the Deputy Director of Managed Care Operations for Tennessee’s state Medicaid agency known as TennCare. Managed Care Operations involves Tennessee’s state Medicaid agency contracting with three health insurance plans to maintain a network of providers of medical services, mental health services, and long-term services and supports the delivery of healthcare services to TennCare members. Mr. Pinkney oversees more than 400 employees responsible for processing more than one million Medicaid applications annually and making a Medicaid eligibility determination for the 20% of Tennessee residents and 50% of Tennessee children who are enrolled in Medicaid.

Prior to joining Medicaid, Mr. Pinkney served in public health for twelve years, last serving as the Assistant Commissioner of the Division of Administrative Services from 2014 to 2018. In this role, Mr. Pinkney managed the state agency’s budget ($624M), accounting, procurement, records management, and facilities management processes. Mr. Pinkney joined the public health workforce in 2006 as the Director of Policy and Legislation for the Community Services Section and provided responses for legislative bills and fiscal notes and assisted with grants management for the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program and Diabetes Prevention and Control Program grants. In 2007, Mr. Pinkney joined the Bureau of Health Services Administration as an Administrator of Regional and Local Health and was responsible for managing TDH’s Health Care Safety Net contracts, analyzing local health department productivity statewide, and responding to internal and external audits of local health departments. In 2009, Mr. Pinkney joined the Mid-Cumberland Region serving in a dual role as the Assistant Regional Director (leading the twelve counties surrounding Nashville-Davidson County), as well as the Public Health County Director for Cheatham County Health Department. In 2012, Mr. Pinkney returned to the Tennessee Department of Health’s central office in a dual role as the agency’s Performance Improvement Manager and the Deputy Director of the Division of Policy, Planning, & Assessment. As the Performance Improvement Manager, Mr. Pinkney was charged with implementing the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, LEAN events, Kaizen events, and other continuous quality improvement tools in order to achieve public health process improvement across the department. As the Deputy Director of the Division of Policy, Planning, & Assessment, Mr. Pinkney was responsible leading the Strengthening Public Health Infrastructure and Improvement grant (SPHII), developing and implementing the agency’s online data request tool, responding to external and internal data requests, and assisting with managing the agency’s public health data systems.

Mr. Pinkney is a native of Roanoke, Virginia and earned his Bachelors of Arts in English Literature from the University of Virginia. While attending school, Mr. Pinkney began working full-time as a mental health specialist in a privatized adolescent mental and behavioral health facility in Charlottesville, VA before moving to Tennessee to join public health in 2006. While working in Tennessee, in 2011, Mr. Pinkney earned his Masters of Business Administration with a concentration in Public Finance from Tennessee State University. In 2020, Mr. Pinkney earned his Masters of Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology from East Tennessee State University. Since 2015, Vincent Pinkney and his wife (Cheri), son (Maddox), and daughter (Lennon) have lived in Clarksville, Tennessee where Mr. Pinkney has served on the Board of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Community Health Foundation since 2018. The Pinkney family is expecting their third child in January 2022.