Supplemental benefits in Medicare Advantage have long been framed as useful for member satisfaction and retention, but peripheral to the core work of managing utilization and cost. This is now changing.
In their paper “Early Dual-Eligible Beneficiaries’ Grocery Supplemental Benefits “, Cobb, Cullen, and Nguyen Locke place grocery benefits in a broader evolution of supplemental MA benefits. They note that the “2019 and 2020 policy changes allowing MA plans to offer nonmedical supplemental benefits, such as grocery cards, have had encouraging results for MA members—particularly for dual-eligible members, who may have greater needs than their non–dual-eligible counterparts”.
We’re pleased to see the research support what we’ve known for years; food insecurity and related social conditions are linked to healthcare utilization patterns and outcomes. Medicare has figured this out– it’s time for Medicaid Managed Care Organizations (MCO) and Commercial plan designers to include food insecurity remedies in their benefit designs.
Cobb et. al’s findings affirm the recent trends that social determinants of health, like healthy food benefits, are a powerful lever for managing costs in medically complex groups. Even modest shifts in engagement can move the needle for plan performance and risk management. Furthermore, the research showed that grocery benefits can drive members to engage more consistently with primary care, specialist visits, and preventive services (Cobb et.al, 3).
By contrast, recent evidence from dual-eligible populations suggests that benefits addressing everyday access barriers — such as grocery assistance — do more than improve quality of life. Cobb et. al report that grocery benefit users had higher likelihoods of wellness visits, primary care encounters, and specialist visits compared with nonusers. Food insecurity is associated with delayed care and reduced preventive utilization.
This isn’t simply a problem to be solved on paper; benefits need to be used in order to work. Knowing that, MA benefit designers have already started to use healthy foods as a lever to impact healthy outcomes.
For plan designers and administrators, this reframes the role of supplemental benefits like healthy food.
From a consumer perspective this makes sense - a person in food insecurity will eat whatever is available and affordable. Often these are foods high in salt, sugar, and other preservatives. There’s little point in seeing a primary care physician only to be given unactionable advice. When the options are “high salt & sugar or nothing”, ‘nothing’ is not an option. Inevitably this worsens that person’s overall health. Without intervention, that person will inevitably rely on high-cost, emergency health services.
It’s easy to sit back and blame poor individual choices and therefore dismiss the problem. But these are parents, children, and members of their communities, all of whom are enduring their own individual circumstances - and we know that healthy food can help. In environments with food deserts, localized pollution, or economic blight, the data is clear - food benefits in health plan design keeps people healthier for longer. Including food benefits is not only the smart and effective thing to do, but the right thing to do as well.
Benefits that reduce everyday access barriers should be evaluated as part of utilization and risk-management strategy, not treated as peripheral member perks.
When designing or renewing benefits, leaders can create more effective benefits by changing how members engage with care. Grocery benefits are one of the strongest levers in a policy maker’s toolbox. There are deep implications for management, outreach, and engagement initiatives in strategic planning beyond Medicare and Medicaid. In an economy with increasing food inflation, benefit holders will be more sensitive to incentives when backed by food - whether for ensuring yearly checkups or encouraging other healthy habits.
We anticipate that judicious benefit designers will increasingly consider these implications going forward.
Sources:
Rebecca Cobb, MS , Daniel Cullen, PhD , Michelle Nguyen Locke, MPH. “Early Dual-Eligible Beneficiaries’ Grocery Supplemental Benefits”, October 2025, “The American Journal of Managed Care Online Early | Volume 31
