NBHC Population Health
February 28, 2018
Penn.-based Health Plan Partners (HPP) said its work with the state's Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance (MANN) led to lower blood glucose levels of diabetics and care utilization of other chronically ill members by implementing a healthy meal program to address food-related social determinants of health (SDOH). The Food-as-Medicine program targets chronically-ill Medicare members, and was found to reduce hospital admissions by 27%, ED visits by 6.9%, provider visits by 15.9% and specialist visits by 7.9%. The program includes 1,900 beneficiaries. HPP and MANNA hope that other payers and organizations will use the insights from the program to address food-related issues in their chronically-ill populations.