Advocacy: Food Is Medicine Coalition

What is the FOOD IS MEDICINE COALITION (FIMC)?
A volunteer association of nonprofit, medically-tailored food and nutrition services (FNS) providers from across the country for the purpose of advancing public policy that supports access to food and nutrition services for people with severe and/or chronic illnesses, promoting research on the efficacy of food and nutrition services on health outcomes and cost of care and sharing best practices in the provision of medically tailored meals and of nutrition education and counseling.

God’s Love We Deliver serves as the convener of FIMC.

What are food and nutrition services (FNS)?
Food and nutrition services include medical nutritional therapy (MNT) and the tailored food that accompanies it. MNT covers nutritional diagnostic, therapy, and counseling services focused on prevention, delay or management of diseases and conditions, and involves an in-depth assessment, periodic reassessment and intervention provided by a licensed, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) outside of a primary care visit. Medically tailored food encompass home-delivered meals, congregate meals, grocery bags, food pantries and vouchers that complement and are necessary to the fulfillment of MNT.

Our Policy Goals:
• First, we are committed to ensuring and expanding access to food and nutrition programs for people living with HIV through the Ryan White Treatment and Modernization Act.
• Second, we are working hard to incorporate food and nutrition services (FNS) for people with severe illness in the major programs of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Did you know?
An ongoing barrier to feeding people who are food insecure and chronically and/or critically-ill is that there is no dedicated stream of public funding for meals for this population, unless a client has HIV. That funding source, the Ryan White Treatment and Modernization Act, does not support all of those with HIV that come to us for help. If a person has any other debilitating illness, from kidney disease to cardiovascular disease to cancer, there is only God’s Love, and our sister agencies in FIMC, to help them. This fact is particularly critical for persons between the ages of 18 and 60 who are ineligible for existing, though not medically tailored, food and meal program assistance designed for seniors and children. FIMC agencies raise the majority of their funds privately.

Despite the sweeping healthcare reform that many states enacted through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), access to comprehensive food and nutrition remains largely uncovered by Medicaid and most insurance programs. Through the ACBP, God’s Love has guided FIMC agencies to seize innovation opportunities in the ACA to incorporate FNS into the medical care continuum. As a results, across the country, FIMC agencies have successful partnerships with Medicaid, Medicare, Dual Eligible and PACE programs, Private insurance and other demonstration projects, like the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) model that endeavors to reduce avoidable hospitalizations statewide.

 

God’s Love We Deliver website

 

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