This collaboration is the latest effort by a healthcare company to address social determinants of health.
Healthcare companies have become more interested in ways to address disparities. Last year, UnitedHealth Group physicians made more than 10 million visits to patients’ homes, according to Home Health Care News. Similarly, Uber Health and the analytics company Socially Determined are collaborating to identify Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to help take patients to appointments and deliver prescriptions.
In the latest move from the health benefits division of The Cigna Group, Cigna Healthcare has teamed up with the meal kit delivery service Hello Fresh to bring Cigna customers discounted meal kits. This offer extends to Cigna’s nearly 12 million members and there is no minimum purchase amount required.
The duo will also support Hello Fresh’s Meals with Meaning program, which provides free meal kits to community members in need.
Last year, 1 in 3 workers in the United States reported facing food insecurity, according to Cigna’s 2023 Vitality in America research report. Sixty percent of Americans also have at least one chronic disease. Chronic diet-related diseases account for almost 20% of annual U.S. healthcare spending.
“By expanding access to affordable, healthy meals, employers can better cultivate a stronger workforce," Heather Dlugolenski, U.S. commercial strategy officer at Cigna Healthcare said in a press release.
This is not the first time Cigna and Hello Fresh have joined forces. In December 2023, they collaborated with select employer clients in underserved communities to deliver almost 3,500 Hello Fresh meals for the holidays.
“This partnership emphasizes the important role that home cooking plays in supporting consumers' overall health and well-being,” Adam Kalikow, senior vice president & managing director of Meal Kits at HelloFresh U.S. said in the same press release. “Together with Cigna Healthcare, we're making HelloFresh meal kits even more accessible while working together to combat food insecurity in our local communities.”
Medicaid managed care organization (MCOs) may be better equipped to address social determinants of health (SDOH) and health equity than payers who use fee-for-service models because SDOH are central to many requirements for MCOs, including those pertaining to population health management, health equity and care coordination.
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