The cost of healthcare remains one of the greatest challenges facing families, employers, and public programs. While discussions are focused on hospital prices, prescription drugs, and insurance premiums, one of the greatest opportunities to lower healthcare costs is expanding access to nutritious food through evidence-based programs including tailored food packages and personalized education.
Poor diet is responsible for more than $1 trillion in health care costs annually. About 76% of U.S. adults live with at least one chronic condition, and it is estimated that 88% of US adults are metabolically unhealthy. Helping people stay healthier through prevention, coordinated care, and evidence-based nutrition interventions may reduce avoidable emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and complications that increase costs over time. Food as Medicine is one way to support those goals.
The concept of “Food as Medicine” (FAM) is not new, but momentum is building. Food as Medicine integrates evidence-based nutrition interventions into healthcare to help prevent, manage, and treat diet-related conditions. These interventions are matched to a person’s clinical needs, delivered alongside appropriate medical care, and evaluated based on health outcomes and use of healthcare services.
FAM approaches prioritize medically tailored meals and groceries, produce prescriptions, and condition-specific nutrition education, but may also integrate complementary programs incorporating federal nutrition programs such as SNAP & WIC and community-based food supports. The evidence is compelling: studies show that food as medicine interventions are associated with better overall well-being, diet quality and clinical markers, fewer acute-care visits, and hospitalizations, and when culturally tailored and designed alongside communities these interventions have the opportunity to not only improve health, but reinforce cultural strengths, and support local systems.
So why should payers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), clinicians, employers, and community health professionals care about what’s on the dinner plate? Because Food as Medicine represents an evidence-based strategy that can improve health outcomes, prioritize whole health, and have the potential to reduce healthcare costs.
Integrating nutrition into healthcare
According to numerous professional guidelines, addressing chronic conditions such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and obesity require more than medications. Quality nutrition influences whether many chronic conditions improve, stabilize, or worsen, yet it remains underutilized as a clinical intervention.
Consider diabetes: a prescription for insulin is only part of the equation. Without consistent access to healthy meals and nutrition guidance and support, many people struggle to manage healthy blood sugar, adhere to medications, and avoid preventable emergency department visits and hospitalizations. The same is true for hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and chronic kidney disease. Incorporating Food as Medicine with medical care can improve outcomes while helping reduce how much care is used. In some cases, effective nutrition interventions may also lessen the need for additional medications over time.
Health plans and PBMs are uniquely positioned to integrate access to Food as Medicine by combining pharmacy data, clinical insights, care management, and community partnerships to deliver nutrition interventions to the right people at the right time, and alongside medications and other evidence-based treatments, before chronic conditions escalate into more costly care.
Connecting People to the Right Support
Clinical nutrition recommendations are most effective when people can realistically follow them. Food costs, transportation, cooking facilities, cultural preferences, health literacy, and other everyday factors all influence a person’s ability to maintain a healthy diet or implement a dietary plan.
Food insecurity remains one of the most important barriers. More than 44 million people, including 13 million children, experience food insecurity in the U.S. Communities experiencing food and nutrition insecurity face higher rates of diet-related disease, and often have fewer low cost, healthy food options. At the same time, most Americans fall short of national nutrition standards: only 1 in 10 adults consumes enough fruits and vegetables, and more than 600,000 people die each year from diet-related diseases.
Expanding access and closing care gaps often starts with identifying people who need support. Screening for and identifying social and disease risk can help care management teams identify barriers and match patients with the appropriate combination of clinical nutrition services, food benefits, and community resources needed to improve health outcomes.
A call for collaboration
Lowering healthcare costs begins with helping people stay healthier. The future of healthcare will depend on delivering the right intervention before disease progresses, not simply adding more treatment after complications occur. Health plans, PBMs, providers, employers, community organizations, and policymakers each have a role in building a healthcare system that recognizes nutrition as a core component of care. By integrating evidence-based nutrition into clinical care, healthcare organizations have an opportunity to improve outcomes, reduce unnecessary spending, and build a more proactive, personalized healthcare system.
Kofi Essel, MD, serves as food as medicine program director at Elevance Health; and Lisa Morris, RPh., serves as vice president, chief clinical and operations officer at CarelonRx
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