Foodsmart Introduces Food-is-Medicine Benefits Management (FBM): Turning Food Spend Into a Clinically Accountable Program

As health plans face growing pressure to prove their food investments work, FBM brings clinical governance, operational oversight, and financial accountability to nutrition interventions.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Foodsmart, the leading foodcare company, today introduced Food-is-Medicine Benefits Management (FBM), a new program that gives health plans a governed, clinically accountable way to manage their food-is-medicine benefit spend.

As budgets tighten, plans are under mounting pressure to prove that food benefits improve health and lower cost. Yet most are administering that spend without a system to govern the basics: who qualifies, whether it's working, and when and how to move the member toward self-sufficiency. FBM closes that gap, turning food from an open-ended line item into a managed benefit a plan can stand behind.

Foodcare works

The results are increasingly clear across independent research. In a randomized controlled trial published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation, researchers at Kaiser Permanente and Tufts University — with Foodsmart as the intervention provider — found that medically tailored groceries and nutrition support significantly improved blood sugar among Medicaid patients with hard-to-control type 2 diabetes, while improving food security.

Another real-world study in Nature Medicine found that medically tailored meals and nutrition counseling were associated with 31% fewer hospitalizations, 20% fewer emergency department visits, and lower healthcare costs.

The evidence establishes that food improves health. FBM gives health plans the system to deliver it, bringing clinical rigor, measurable value, and responsible scale.

Why now

Three forces are converging on health plan leaders at once. Federal and state Medicaid budgets are tightening. New expectations require plans to prove a program impacts both health and cost, not simply that a benefit was delivered. And rising reporting mandates, compounded by a national shortage of registered dietitians, make clinical nutrition difficult to staff and document. Plans are being asked to do more with food and prove it works.

What Food-is-Medicine Benefits Management (FBM) does

FBM turns food spend into defensible, measurable outcomes in three ways:

• Member-optimized food vendor selection: A curated, multi-vendor network where each at-risk member is matched to medically tailored food across clinical, cultural, and access factors, with a member-backed quality bar that flags and corrects any vendor whose performance slips.
• Clinical path for member independence: A registered dietitian sets the level of support by clinical risk and guides members to step down from food benefits over time through Foodsmart's digital behavior change tools, SNAP, WIC, and community resources, so food spend is a targeted investment rather than an open-ended cycle, and so that member support doesn't end abruptly.
• Audit-ready documentation: Outcome, utilization, and status are logged on every authorization, so plans can demonstrate clinical need to auditors without adding headcount.

Proven savings & sustained clinical impact

In a third-party validated claims analysis, Foodsmart delivered $54 in net savings per member per month ($232 gross PMPM) among members receiving medically tailored food and medical nutrition therapy (MNT) for pregnancy or chronic conditions including diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.

Across four health plan deployments, members enrolled in Foodsmart's FBM program saw sustained clinical improvements after twelve months of engagement:

• 23% of obese members achieved 5%+ weight loss
• 34% of members with diabetes achieved 0.5%+ A1c reduction
• 73% of members with stage 1 or stage 2 hypertension improved blood pressure
• 33% of members with food insecurity at baseline improved food security

Why Foodsmart

What sets FBM apart is the engine beneath it. Foodsmart's nationwide network of registered dietitians gives the FBM solution unique clinical independence and authority. That clinical care translates directly into member trust, with Foodsmart RDs for the FBM program earning an outstanding Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 72.

"Food is one of the most powerful tools health plans have, and it deserves the same rigor as everything else they cover. Today, most plans are spending on food without a system to govern it, prove it works, or know when a member is ready for independence. FBM changes that, giving plans a way to run their food benefits as accountable clinical care," said Kurt Knight, Chief Executive Officer at Foodsmart.

About Foodsmart

Foodsmart is the leading foodcare platform in the U.S., pioneer of Food-is-Medicine Benefits Management (FBM). Foodcare is the infrastructure that combines clinical nutrition care, behavior-change tools, food benefits, and data to improve health outcomes and lower healthcare costs. Powered by a national network of Registered Dietitians and serving more than 3 million members, Foodsmart makes foodcare operational at scale for Medicaid managed care organizations, Medicare Advantage plans, commercial plans, and employers nationwide. Learn more at foodsmart.com.

SOURCE Foodsmart