Study in JAMA Network Open:

Association of National Expansion of Insurance Coverage of Medically Tailored Meals with Estimated Hospitalizations and Health Care Expenditures in the US

This study, published in late 2022, demonstrates the positive impact on hospitalizations and health care spending of scaling access to medically tailored meals (MTMs) to patients with a range of nutrition related conditions. The study builds off existing peer reviewed published research on MTMs showing a 37% to 52% lower risk of hospitalization, 16% to 31% reduction in monthly health care expenditures, and decreased net costs of approximately $2,500 per patient-year after paying for meal costs.

Despite a suboptimal diet being a leading factor associated with morbidity and mortality in the US, and the growing body of research supporting MTMs as a strategy, medically tailored meals are not currently a covered benefit in Medicare or Medicaid, with the exception of a few states who are using Medicaid waivers to test MTMs and other “food as medicine” interventions. This first of its kind modeling study sought to evaluate the 1-year and 10-year impacts on hospitalizations and health care expenditures. The research team used data from the 2019 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey as a baseline and included patients with diabetes, congestive heart failure, myocardial infarction, other heart disease, emphysema, stroke, nonmelanoma cancer, chronic kidney disease and HIV. The study assumed patients received 10 meals per week for an average of 8 months.

Based on the 2019 data, the study found:

  1. Based on the diagnoses listed above, 6.3 million Americans would have qualified for MTMs with the vast majority being covered by Medicaid and/or Medicare.

  2. If all eligible people received the meals:

  • 1,594,000 hospitalizations would have been avoided in year 1

  • $25 to $54 billion in health care costs ($38.7 billion average) would have been avoided in year 1

  • The associated net health care costs savings would be $13.6 to $28.5 billion annually

 This research is being used to support the passage of HR 5370, the Medically Tailored Meals in Medicare Pilot Act, a bipartisan meal to conduct a 10-state pilot of MTMs in the Medicare system.