By Clint Thompson
The International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA) aims to see Medicare and Medicaid use produce prescriptions as a covered health insurance benefit. The hope is to help people reduce obesity and health-related concerns by consuming more fruits and vegetables. The domino effect would result in a healthier America and increase demand for produce grown in the United States. That would benefit growers in the Southeast who produce a substantial amount of those fruits and vegetables, according to IFPA Vice President of Nutrition and Health Mollie Van Lieu.
“The goal is to get the data and evidence that the healthcare industry needs to fund produce prescriptions as a covered benefit,” Van Lieu says. “Collectively, between Medicare and Medicaid, the VA (Veterans Affairs) and Indian Health Service, that’s 150 million Americans that are covered. Not all are low income, but a lot of them are. It’s simply saying, just as you would cover insulin, if we can provide evidence that consumption and availability of fruit and vegetable benefits results in improved healthcare outcomes and cost savings, then it should be a covered benefit.”
MAKING PROGRESS
Van Lieu says the push for produce prescriptions started 10 to 15 years ago with small non-profit organizations partnering with healthcare systems to provide people with fruits and vegetables. Industry leaders and experts are trying to take a more concerted effort in linking people with diet-related diseases to produce that can prevent and reverse the diseases in some cases. Most efforts have been privately funded, though the 2018 farm bill contained pilot program funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “We’re really at the cusp of something much bigger if we can get the policy in place,” Van Lieu says.
Within the last year, the VA healthcare system and Indian Healthcare Service, both federal healthcare systems, committed to conducting pilot programs to test produce prescriptions. The IFPA hopes to obtain data that would help meet the end goal of Medicare and Medicaid using produce prescriptions as a covered benefit.
The data support the stance that Americans are not eating enough healthy foods. Van Lieu says about one in every 10 people is eating the recommended quantity of fruits and vegetables. That statistic is lower for those facing food insecurities. It is not a problem limited to low-income populations, but there are current programs that are targeting that demographic.
Van Lieu says dramatic results can be seen in a relatively short amount of time when treating obesity, hypertension and diabetes with produce prescriptions. “We’re trying to embed produce prescriptions in the healthcare system, but the practical implementation of it is a little simpler than that,” she says. “There are models where right in the clinic there’s a food pharmacy where you can access the fruits and vegetables.”
A North Carolina healthcare system has a program with Food Lion grocery stores where members can take their loyalty card into any store and get $40 per month for the purchase of fruits and vegetables.
“It’s a prescription in that it’s embedded within your healthcare system, but the actual redemption of it is not medicinal in nature. It’s seamless in the retail setting,” Van Lieu explains.
NATIONAL NUTRITION STRATEGY
The IFPA released its fruit and vegetable moonshot last July. It’s an eight-point plan on a national nutrition strategy for the White House to consider. President Biden included many of IFPA’s policy recommendations during the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health that was held in September.
One of those recommendations was the call for produce prescriptions and financial incentives for all Americans. The “food is medicine” intervention includes medically tailoring meals and groceries as well as produce prescriptions. It also includes increased access to nutrition-related services through private insurers and federal programs beyond just Medicare and Medicaid.
“Putting our weight behind the initiative certainly is beneficial to the produce industry; there’s no doubt about that. But it’s also the right thing to do,” says Van Lieu. “It’s all driven by science. We’re really trying to get Americans to align with the dietary guidelines. If only one in 10 are, then what we’ve done to date, in both the private sector and government has not worked. We do see it as a responsibility to do everything we can to get the evidence and data to see if we can scale this.”