MassHealth’s nutrition services program that provides nutritious food to its members has had positive results, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at UMass Chan Medical School. Findings show that participating individuals were significantly less likely to go to the emergency room or be hospitalized compared to those who did not participate.
The program also resulted in cost savings for MassHealth, which is Massachusetts’ combined Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program.
The study evaluated over 20,000 MassHealth members who were offered a range of nutrition services from January 2020 through March 2023. Services included medically tailored meals, home-delivered meals, food boxes, groceries, produce prescriptions, food vouchers, gift cards, and connections to community food pantries or federal nutrition program assistance.
Program participation was associated with a 23 percent reduction in hospitalizations and a 13 percent reduction in emergency department visits for MassHealth members who received services compared with those members who were eligible non-participants.
Adults with more than 90 days of enrollment had on average $2,502 less in health care expenditures compared with non-participants, which resulted in net cost savings to MassHealth after paying for program services for these adults. Furthermore, health care costs were on average $1,721 lower among MassHealth members while they were receiving services following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (2022-2023).
MassHealth introduced the nutrition initiative in 2020 through Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) that partner with community-based organizations to deliver the services. MassHealth ACOs are health systems or groups of providers that accept responsibility for the quality and cost of care for a defined population of MassHealth members.
In January, MassHealth made a major shift in its approach to offering health related social needs (HRSN) services, such as nutrition services. MassHealth ACOs are currently required to offer at least one housing service and one nutrition service for eligible members and contract with housing and nutrition organizations as HRSN providers to deliver these services.