Digital food-as-medicine company NourishedRx is partnering with fintech company ProHealth Connect to make it easier for patients to access home-delivered food and nutrition support in 2024, the companies announced Tuesday.
Stamford, Connecticut-based NourishedRx serves payers and providers and offers personalized food solutions, such as grocery support, prepared meals and meal kits. It also provides nutrition education and wraparound support like helping patients sign up for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. New York City-based ProHealth Connect helps independent, community-based retailers accept health plan supplemental benefits, particularly over-the-counter and grocery benefits. It primarily supports Medicare Advantage members but is starting to support Medicaid members.
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Through the partnership, NourishedRx’s nutrition offerings are accessible for members of 46 payers with food benefits through a ProHealth Connect-supported OTC or flex card. These members will be able to receive NourishedRx’s food delivery services and its wraparound support. The partnership affects about 17 million members.
“We’ve been really interested in working with a delivery-based food model for quite some time now. It’s been missing from our tool belt. … This is food delivery on steroids because of all the clinical aspects wrapped around this,” said Andrew Winakor, president of ProHealth Connect, in an interview.
In addition, NourishedRx’s platform is being integrated with ProHealth Connect’s API, which allows members to receive personalized food bundles based on their dietary needs and preferences.
The partnership comes at a time when there is a dire need for nutrition support. About 17 million households in the U.S. are food insecure. In addition, 74% of Americans are overweight or have obesity and 93% of American adults have poor cardiometabolic health.
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“The need is just glaringly obvious, but I think where our partnership is really wonderful is that typically for health plans and for individual health plan members, [getting] access to healthy food and relatable nutrition information is not so obvious,” said Lauren Driscoll, CEO of NourishedRx. “People have all different degrees of understanding of nutrition and exposure to healthy food. Many people even have a nostalgic attachment to unhealthy food because it’s what they’ve eaten their entire life. … By the two of us coming together, we’re basically making sure that the member has a very straightforward source of payment.”
Driscoll added that she hopes to ultimately support “lasting dietary change” for members.
The food-as-medicine movement is steadily growing, with several companies in the space. This includes Season Health, which offers personalized recipes, pre-made meals, grocery support, nutrition education and one-on-one meetings with a dietitian. FarmboxRx also offers nutrition services through delivered produce boxes, cooking kits and pantry items.
Photo: vgajic, Getty Images
