Grocery Store Food

Medically Supportive Food and Nutrition

Expanding health care coverage to use food as medicine

In July 2019, a group of Bay Area organizations identified a common goal of shifting healthy food interventions from being supported by philanthropy to being standard covered health insurance benefits. Based on this shared goal, we formed a coalition advocating for California’s Medicaid System, Medi-Cal, to pay for medically supportive food and nutrition services. This spectrum of services include interventions such as Medically Tailored Meals, Produce Prescriptions, Food Pharmacies, and Healthy Food Vouchers designed to prevent, reverse, and manage certain health conditions.

One way to move from philanthropically funded interventions to covered benefits is through Medicaid waivers which allow the state to further pilot and study medically supportive food and nutrition programs using public health care funding.

California Advancing and Innovating Medical (CalAIM), represents the California Department of Health Care Service’s comprehensive waiver proposal meant to take effect January 2022. Our coalition submitted public comment with more than 95 additional organizations urging the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to include medically supportive food and nutrition into the state’s waiver application. On January 8, 2021 DHCS released their draft waiver application which included medically supportive food and nutrition. This exciting development is a critical first step to implementing medically supportive food interventions across California.

If this inclusion is approved in the final waiver application and adopted by local health plans California will join Massachusetts, North Carolina and Oregon, in providing medically supportive food to eligible Medicaid recipients. These interventions improve health care outcomes, reduce health care costs and mitigate health disparities.

View our position paper for a detailed explanation of the opportunity and our proposal to the Department of Health Care Services.
View our infographic for more information on the health impacts and cost savings associated with these interventions.  

This project is made possible through the generous support of the Hellman Foundation Fund, Voices for Healthy Kids, an initiative of the American Heart Association and the Stupski Foundation.

Staff Leads: Katie Ettman, Food and Agriculture Senior Policy Associate, kettman@spur.org 

Project Partners:
Alamaeda County All In

Updates

Op-Ed: Health Care Plans Must Embrace Food- and Nutrition-Based Medical Interventions

News /
From the SF Examiner: At the end of 2021, California received permission to pilot new approaches to providing healthcare for those who rely on Medi-Cal. The onus is now on local health plans to implement pilot strategies. One option they should consider is medically supportive food and nutrition. Recent SPUR research makes a strong case for these interventions, which include produce prescriptions, food pharmacies, healthy groceries and medically tailored meals.

Integrating Food Into Healthcare

Policy Brief
California is in the midst of overhauling its Medicaid program to better serve the 12 million low-income residents who rely on it for health care. This report explores the state’s capacity to provide one key aspect of the plan: medically supportive food and nutrition interventions such as food pharmacies, produce prescriptions, healthy groceries and medically tailored meals designed to prevent, reverse and treat chronic health conditions.

SPUR Encourages Budget Committees to Support Implementation of Medically-Supportive Food and Nutrition through CalAIM and Additional Produce Prescription Pilots through AB 368

Advocacy Letter
Medically-supportive food and nutrition Interventions are a way to prevent, reverse, and manage common chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. To secure the implementation of these powerful interventions, SPUR urges the budget committees to fund the food prescription pilots outlined in AB 368 and amend the budget trailer bill language to clarify and ensure easy implementation of medically-supportive food and nutrition interventions through CalAIM.

SPUR Supports AB 368, Which Would Establish Three Food Prescription Pilots

Advocacy Letter
SPUR supports Assembly Bill 368, which would establish food prescription pilots in partnership with Medi-Cal managed care plans in three California counties. The pilots will provide medically-supportive food to approximately 2,400 Medi-Cal beneficiaries who have one or more chronic health condition(s). The legislation aims to directly address racial health disparities, chronic disease, healthcare costs, and healthcare utilization among Medi-Cal beneficiaries.