Design your Food is Medicine program.
Four short questions. We map your population, your program type and our capabilities to a clear next step. Built for health plans, FQHCs, clinics, employers and community partners.
The Food is Medicine pyramid: click any tier.
Established by Tufts and adopted by ODPHP, AHA and CMMI. The pyramid maps interventions from prevention (broadest base) to treatment (highest clinical intensity). Click any tier to see what it is, who it's for, and which FiMCo programs operate there.
Medically Tailored Meals
Patients with complex diet-sensitive chronic disease & high healthcare utilization
Ready-to-eat meals designed by a Registered Dietitian for a specific clinical condition. Delivered home post-discharge or for chronic disease management. Highest evidence base for cost reduction: 31% fewer hospitalizations and 20% fewer ER visits in Massachusetts' Medicaid evaluation (Hager et al., Nature Medicine 2026).
- •Post-hospital discharge meals
- •Renal-tailored low-K / low-P meals
- •Cardiac DASH meals
- •Diabetic ADA-aligned meals
Five levers decide whether a program changes outcomes.
The field calls them the key design considerations. Each is a place programs quietly fail, and a place FiMCo's operations are already built to deliver.
Access
What barriers (transportation, language, housing, coverage gaps) keep eligible patients from ever starting? Screen for them and design them out.
Islandwide cold-chain delivery and a bilingual call center remove transportation and language barriers; SDoH screening flags coverage gaps at intake.
Dose
How much food per month, adjusted for household size? Food is shared at home, so a single-patient box rarely reaches a therapeutic dose.
Box size is set by household and condition, accounting for caregivers who distribute food across the home.
Duration
Programs need at least ~3 months to move HbA1c, and 6+ months to bend utilization and cost. Re-assess and step up or down at 3–6 month intervals.
Sustained, scheduled delivery (e.g. bi-weekly) with re-assessment cadence built into the operating playbook, not one-off drops.
Food Quality & Preferences
Match the basket to the population and the target outcome: nutrient-dense, quality-sourced, and honoring cultural and religious preferences.
RD-designed baskets sourced through Caribbean Produce, culturally adapted to Puerto Rican staples, with ≥40% PR-farmer supply where possible.
Delivery Mode
Home delivery drives near-universal participation; required pickup typically caps redemption near two-thirds. The delivery choice is a clinical choice.
Home delivery, community pickup, and community distribution, chosen per population, never forcing a clinic to store food on-site.
One patient moves between tiers as their condition changes.
Food is Medicine isn't one intervention for life. It escalates and de-escalates. A multi-modal operator can step a patient up to meals during a crisis and back down to produce as they stabilize.
Maintain diet quality and keep risk factors in range.
Tighten the basket to the condition while the patient still cooks.
Remove the preparation burden entirely during the highest-risk window.
De-escalate to MTG, then PRx, as the patient stabilizes.
Three ways to run the program, with no food on-site at the clinic required.
Clinics shouldn't carry food-safety risk. Pick a model that fits your population and operational reality. Click each tab to see the flow.
Home Delivery
You prescribe the food · FiMCo procures it and delivers to the patient's home
Prescribes the food · sends eligibility (SFTP) or prescription (EMR)
Procures fresh produce + designs box with RD
Receives at home · bilingual phone or web support
Captures satisfaction survey + outcomes data
- •FQHC / Section 330
- •Health plans
- •Senior nutrition
- •Mobility-limited patients
- •Geographically dispersed populations
- ✓No food storage burden on the clinic
- ✓Highest convenience for mobility-limited and chronic patients
- ✓Bilingual call center handles non-digital members
- ✓Cold chain controlled end-to-end by FiMCo
- ✓Adherence highest in observed populations
Who is the program serving?
Pick the audience type. We'll match it to relevant program designs.