A recently released study says Pennsylvania has the potential to realize the second highest level of health care cost savings in the nation if medically tailored meals or MTMs, a proven treatment for reducing hospital admissions, readmissions and ER visits, were accessible for more patients with health issues from diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease to cancer and HIV.  

“The potential to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs for patients, insurers and health care systems overall is huge,” says Sue Daugherty, RDN, LDN and CEO of Philadelphia-based MANNA, a leading provider of MTMs in the Philadelphia region. “But the ability to prescribe and provide those meals for more people faces two major hurdles. First, insurance coverage for medically tailored meals is very limited, and secondly, for-profit companies have entered this space, taking up those limited Medicaid and insurance dollars with products that have little to no basis in nutrition.” 

For 30 years, the community-based nonprofit MANNA has been on the ground with evidence-based nutritional services and medically tailored meals to treat disease by optimizing patients’ diets. The majority of MANNA’s services are funded through philanthropy with approximately 35% of its clients covered through Medicaid Managed Care and Medicare Advantage plans by forward-thinking insurers, including Aetna Better Health (CHIP), AmeriHealth Caritas, Independence Blue Cross, Jefferson Health Plans, Keystone First, Pennsylvania Health & Wellness, UPMC, and United Healthcare.   

According to the study’s projections, Pennsylvania could achieve $4,370 per patient in net annual savings. “Pennsylvania has the opportunity to be a national leader by becoming the first state to mandate coverage for medically prescribed nutrition, and we are encouraging legislators to make that happen,” she says. 

A MANNA study also shows the savings that can be achieved. By following medically prescribed diets, MANNA clients’ average healthcare costs were approximately $13,000 less than non-MANNA patients, which accounts for a 31% cost savings. The rate of hospitalization for clients was 50% lower, and those who were hospitalized had stays that were 37% shorter than patients not adhering to MANNA’s medically tailored meals. When MANNA clients were hospitalized, their costs were 40% lower, with managed care organizations paying an average of $12,000 less per month compared to non-MANNA clients, and after a hospital stay, MANNA clients were 23% more likely to be discharged to their homes, rather than a long-term care or subacute rehabilitation facility. 

Community-based nonprofits like MANNA take a holistic approach to food as medicine, providing individualized nutrition counseling by licensed dietitians along with fresh-made, home-delivered, medically tailored meals for clients and their families to promote compliance – all at no cost to clients. In contrast, the entry of for-profit companies marketing “dietitian-approved,” home-delivered meals is muddying the waters. “Many of these companies operate nationally and while they are scaling delivery faster than we can, for the most part, the meals they are delivering are ultra-processed with very high salt and fat content. These meals are not nutritionally tailored to treat disease, and there is no patient-centered nutrition counseling associated with them. We are working to highlight that important difference with insurers, legislators and consumers,” Daugherty says. She adds that a good way to evaluate the merits of a meal provider is through a new voluntary accreditation standard, a first for the field, established by the Food Is Medicine Coalition (FIMC), a national organization working to increase access to medically tailored meal interventions for nearly 40 years. Daugherty, a FIMC advisory board member, reports that MANNA is one of the first agencies in the country pursuing the new accreditation.  

Medically tailored meals are a critical part of medical treatment, and in Philadelphia, the team at MANNA is working to make this transformative element of care more available and accessible for more patients across the region. 

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