Welcome to the Food is Medicine Accelerator

The Food is Medicine Accelerator Program is an initiative led by the Food Is Medicine Coalition, Community Servings, God’s Love We Deliver, the Nonprofit Finance Fund, and the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School. The provision of medically tailored meals (MTM) is the only known food insecurity intervention that helps overcome four key barriers to optimal health: (1) difficulty changing dietary behaviors, (2) limited access to health-promoting foods, (3) insecurity related to food access, and (4) choosing between optimal disease management and purchase of healthy foods. The intervention targets individuals whose needs cannot be met with less intensive interventions such as non-MTM programs, food pantries, SNAP, and congregate meal sites.

With studies showing that MTM interventions improve health outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and enhance patient satisfaction, healthcare payers and providers are beginning to take notice and have started reimbursing for these services. Healthcare reimbursement of MTM offers the opportunity to sustainably scale the intervention, reaching more individuals who would benefit from medically optimized nutrition.

There are large areas across the country that do not have access to MTM services. The Food is Medicine Accelerator works to refine, replicate, and broadly scale the MTM model to ensure that people coping with food insecurity and severe illness have access to MTM, regardless of where they reside.