Elevance Health expands food as medicine support to community health centers

Elevance Health expands food as medicine support to community health centers

By Noah Tong  Aug 18, 2025 3:15pm

Food as Medicine Elevance Health (Anthem) National Association of Community Health Centers Primary Care

Elevance Health is integrating its food as medicine program for Medicaid members in community health centers, the insurer announced Monday.

In partnership with the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), the company said it will begin training primary provider teams. Now, certain Medicaid members at risk for diet-related chronic conditions can receive personalized nutrition support, a news release said.

“Incorporating food as medicine directly into primary care enables us to treat nutrition not just as a social driver of health, but as a clinical lever for improving outcomes,” Shantanu Agrawal, M.D., chief health officer at Elevance Health, said in a statement.

Nutrition support will include medically tailored interventions, coaching and referrals. The integration will embrace telehealth to further increase access.

The partnership is designed to improve patient engagement, reduce chronic disease and bolster preventive health support.

The NACHC will also receive a six-month grant from Elevance Health’s philanthropic division. The funds will be used to “develop a scalable community health center food as medicine model” with clinical interventions and food delivery, the news release explained.

Both Elevance Health and the NACHC said they hope to establish a Nutrition Center of Excellence as a national, replicative model on food as medicine care support.

“For 60 years, community health centers have been innovating in delivering comprehensive primary care, including but not limited to nutrition services, community gardens and community kitchens,” said Kyu Rhee, M.D., president and CEO of the NACHC. “Our collaboration with Elevance Health is an opportunity to assess, identify and scale evidence-based nutrition-based care models to the communities that need them most.”

Food as medicine has grown in popularity among companies and lawmakers as more people appreciate the link between health outcomes and food quality.

Earlier this year, Kaiser Permanente and Tufts University’s Food is Medicine Institute established a new network to propel the food as medicine movement. Elevance Health was among the network’s founding members, as were other Blues plans.