FOUNDED MORE THAN 32 YEARS AGO, Health Partners Plans is a non-profit managed care organization in Greater Southeastern Pennsylvania that serves more than 250,000 members through its Medicaid, Medicare and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) plans. It is also one of the few MCOs in the nation that is hospital-owned.
In 2015, HPP and MANNA, a local community based organization, decided to explore a simple question: could they measure the positive health outcomes of members given therapeutic food as medicine to treat chronic health diseases? To find the answer, the HPP-MANNA Food is Medicine program began offering medically tailored meals and nutrition counseling to a small group of diabetic members.
After the program improved health outcomes and lowered costs per member per month, HPP expanded the program. As of October 2019, more than 730,600 meals have been delivered to more than 3,000 HPP members suffering from various illnesses, including diabetes, heart disease, malnutrition and kidney failure.