MediFormatica’s Post

Foodsmart secured $200M to expand health plan partnerships for its food-as-medicine platform. Combining expert dietitians, personalized meal planning, and discounted food ordering, it’s scaling insurance-backed telenutrition for the masses. A leading killer, poor diet costs America over $1T annually. As an alternative or complement to GLP-1s, food-as-medicine will be key to better outcomes. • Specializing in chronic disease, Season Health raised $7M in December. • Expanding access to RD’s, Nourish closed a $35M Series A round in March • Also in March, Chiyo secured $3M for TCM-inspired maternal health meal delivery. • Backed by General Catalyst and Forerunner Ventures, Fay emerged with $25M in May. Meanwhile, food desert-focused FarmboxRx eclipsed $35M in revenue, and Kaiser Permanente launched a Food Is Medicine Center of Excellence to advance healthcare integration.

"Between 2023 and Q1 2024, $373M has been invested across 22 digital health startups developing food as medicine (FaM) offerings.1 And large companies within and outside of healthcare—retailers, payers, providers, and tech—are partnering and building solutions to seize the opportunity. New models are sprouting from today’s FaM innovators, who are building solutions that are tech-enabled, outcomes-based, and integrated into primary and chronic care."

Check out these insights on the transformative impact of Food Is Medicine (FIM) interventions in healthcare. From tackling social determinants of health to advancing equity, this blog post delves into how FIM is revolutionizing healthcare delivery. Join the conversation and dive into key initiatives shaping the future of food and healthcare. #FoodIsMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #sdoh #hrsn https://lnkd.in/e8Uqepxi

Don't miss it! Tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET, Season Health CEO Josh Hix joins other founders and investors in the emerging food-as-medicine space for a discussion on the following topics: - The evolution of food-as-medicine and the current market opportunity   - The future state: improving access to nutrition services, impact on chronic disease management, and how food-as-medicine companies can scale up  - Key considerations for investors — and what is most misunderstood about food-as-medicine Register below to attend in Tech Talks: The Food-as-Medicine Investment and Innovation Landscape, hosted by PitchBook. #foodasmedicine #healthtech https://lnkd.in/dwb3Gmt6

Nothing about the way our medical or food system operates makes any sense. We bombard our farms with pesticides and herbicides, which Destroys our soil quality, the food we put in our bodies, and the farmers who grow it. ——— Over time, this perpetual process 1️⃣ Voids our food of nutrients, making us dependent on more products (ie, supplements) to make up for it 2️⃣ Destroys our health and the health of farmers by increasing our risk of illnesses rooted in chronic inflammation (eg, autoimmunity, cancer, neurological disease) 3️⃣ Creates an unsustainable food system that requires more land destruction and industrial processing to function 4️⃣ Disconnects us from our food to the extent we have no idea what we’re putting in our bodies or where it’s come from 5️⃣ Detaches us from the health of our planet and communities (a nice way of saying we no longer care) ——— No one benefits from this cycle ^ except for a select few at the top who run the show. But even they aren’t genuinely thriving off this model if they are too are consuming the same foods making us all sick. ——— Our healthcare model is unfortunately not much different. Our reactionary approach rooted in: finding a diagnosis (not a root cause) and silencing the symptom by dosing out drugs isn’t serving patients, physicians, or any other healthcare practitioner alike. ——— 1️⃣ Physicians are overworked and often unfulfilled Given they can’t always serve patients in the way they’d like to because the incentive structure ties their hands. ——— 2️⃣ Our medical edu system breeds a culture of sickness: Sleepless nights, fast food in hospitals, and sacrifices to your own health to serve the health of others are all normalized. ——— 3️⃣ Patients are locked up in a system that: Keeps them sick and dependent on meds for the business of healthcare to suceeed. ——— And the irony is We’re only continuing to grow our massive debt as a country when we act like this. ——— So while that model ^ is profitable in the case of → Hospitals being treated as private and public business ventures → Pharmaceutical companies banking off the # of people reliant on their drugs ——— It’s not very profitable at all when you zoom out. It’s bankrupting our citizens and country. ——— According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 41% of Americans are in medical debt (2022) Before the pandemic (2019), KFF also found the U.S. owed over $195B in collective medical debt. ——— That’s larger than Greece’s entire economy. When are we going to stop and realize none of this is working? ——— When are going to wake up to the reality of the chaos we’ve created and how much harm it’s causing? When are we going to acknowledge millions of people are living the worst version of their lives right now because of these systems? ——— It’s pretty messed up, yes. But we have to be willing to see and accept it at face value to actually start making changes. #healthinnovation #foodsystem #holistichealth

Does your organization support the integration of nutrition into health care? The Food is Medicine Institute is still collecting signatures to our organizational sign-on letter to U.S. House and Senate Appropriations leaders in support of meaningful funding and report language around nutrition research and food is medicine-related initiatives. Read the sign-on letter at the link below and see its list of 81 signatories, which represent sectors and types of organizations including academia, consumer advocacy, health care, food manufacturing and retail, non-profit, technology, and more. While the FIMI team delivered the letter in June to relevant U.S. congressional offices in time to inform their appropriations bill deliberations, the sign-on form remains open for additional organizations that would like to show support. The FIMI team anticipates sharing the letter again—including its updated signatory list—with relevant congressional leaders later in the FY25 appropriations process. Read here: https://lnkd.in/dH6JrapH Sign on to show your support: https://lnkd.in/dN2skH7q

Foodsmart secures more than $200M for telenutrition platform - MobiHealthNews Foodsmart Secures $200M for Telenutrition Platform #Funding Announcement Foodsmart, a telenutrition platform, has recently secured over $200 million in funding to expand its services. #Telenutrition Platform Foodsmart offers a comprehensive telenutrition platform that provides personalized nutrition guidance and support to users. #Mission and Vision The company's mission is to improve the health and well-being of individuals through accessible and convenient nutrition services. #Expansion Plans With the new funding, Foodsmart plans to expand its reach and enhance its platform to better serve its users. #Partnerships Foodsmart aims to collaborate with healthcare providers and employers to integrate its telenutrition platform into existing healthcare systems. ai.mediformatica.com #health #partners #acce #employers #foodsmart #medicaid #platform #healthplan #medicare #partnership #california #dietitians #digitalhealth #healthit #healthtech #healthcaretechnology @MediFormatica (https://buff.ly/3L4OP61)

The latest from AHA Market Scan: 3 Ways to Strengthen Food Is Medicine Initiatives Even if you’ve only scanned the headlines, you’ve no doubt noticed a recent surge in the news about Food Is Medicine (FIM) programs. These programs — often spearheaded or funded by hospitals and health systems, government agencies, insurers and philanthropic entities — provide food resources to prevent, manage or treat specific clinical conditions in coordination with health care providers. https://lnkd.in/giyvkNyX

#Food as #medicine market is rapidly evolving, with significant funding, partnerships, and diversification. Integration with healthcare delivery, especially for vulnerable populations, is a key trend. Various business models and partnerships are emerging to address different needs and opportunities in the market. #Market #Overview:  - Funding: Over $1.8 billion in venture funding for food as medicine startups  - Companies: 57 digital health companies in the food as medicine space are tracked  - Partnerships: Over 50 food as medicine partnerships, with 34 inked since 2022.  - Potential Savings: $13.6 billion+ potential payer savings from targeted medically tailored meal (MTM) programs. #Emerging #Trends:  - Medicare Advantage (MA) Plans: 80% of MA beneficiaries are on plans including supplemental food benefits in 2024.  - Research Funding: The Rockefeller Foundation Foundation invested $80M in partnership with U.S. DHHS and the American Heart Association to advance food as medicine research and advocacy in 2024.  - Diversification: The landscape of food as medicine startups is rapidly diversifying, with 25% of startups having biomarker assays (e.g., microbiome testing) or linked biometric devices.  - Business Models: Payer/employer business models now outpace direct-to-consumer (DTC) by 15%, with 20% of companies leveraging fee-for-service medical benefits (e.g., dietitian consults) #Partnerships and #Integration:  - Healthcare Incumbents: New entrants are partnering with food as medicine companies to integrate these services with care delivery, especially for food insecure patients or those with chronic conditions.  - Examples: Partnerships include Kroger, CVS Health, Mayo Clinic, and pharmaceutical companies like Roche and Novo Nordisk. #Food as #Medicine #Ecosystem  - Service Components: Food as medicine value chain includes food access, program enablers, and nutrition care.  - Business Models: Funding mechanisms include medical benefits, over-the-counter (OTC) cards, and out-of-pocket payments. #Recent #Partnerships  - Provider-Initiated: Partnerships like Foodsmart x Health Systems and Instacart x DispatchHealth  - Plan-Initiated: Partnerships like Soda Health x Grocers, where health plans send white-labeled debit cards for healthy food purchases. Source: Rock Health | Sari Kaganoff | Chris Lew

This Economic Dietitian is nerding out. Read on to hear what makes me so jazzed about representing CommonSpirit Health in Coding4Food Advisory Committee's Produce Prescription Workgroup led by Gravity Project. The workgroup launches this summer and includes a rockstar roster of innovators in the #FoodIsMedicine space like Vouchers 4 Veggies (EatSF), Share Our Strength, FreshRx Oklahoma and Steven Chen of Alameda County's Recipe4Health program. Individual-level economic incentives (aka vouchers, discounts, coupons) have incredible power to make the gift of fresh food (or any #healthrelatedsocialneeds) attainable for all. In the clinical setting, these incentives might even strengthen the relationships between a patient and their #healthcare providers. (Stay tuned for results of our research with Fresh to Flourish Produce Rx program which aims to begin testing this theory). A variety of avenues for seed funding exists to support pilot projects and the incentives themselves, while we test interventions' efficacy to improve health outcomes (#philanthropy, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). But does efficacy matter without sustainable financing mechanisms? A scalability challenge in clinical settings is sustainable funding for the administrative labor. I'm happy to explore billing and coding infrastructures with this workgroup as one part of the solution. If you want to know more about this concept of medical coding for food interventions, visit https://lnkd.in/gxY5_Wi6 #RDChat #healthpolicy #communityhealth #sdoh #foodsecurity #endhunger #publichealth