Bruce Japsen Feb 12, 2019, 08:30am
One of the nation’s largest Blue Cross Blue
Shield companies is expanding food delivery to
40 zip codes considered "food deserts" in Chicago and Dallas through
a new service as health insurers push further into addressing social
determinants of health.
For now, the six-month pilot announced by
Chicago-based Health Care Service Corp, which operates Blue Cross plans in five
states, has begun meal deliveries in 25 Chicago zip codes with plans to expand
the program to 15 zip codes in Dallas in April through a new venture known
as foodQ.
“Through the
foodQ service, the companies will offer consumers easy access to
affordable, nutritious foods to improve their health outcomes, particularly for
diet-related, chronic conditions, while reducing avoidable emergency room
visits and hospital admissions,” Health Care Service said in announcing the new
service with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Institute, which is
a part of the national trade group and health plan lobby, the Blue Cross and
Blue Shield Association.
The idea behind such efforts whether they be
paying for food delivery or paying rent and providing access to affordable
housing is to improve health outcomes and help patients avoid getting sick and
suffering a more serious illness or hospitalization in the future. Other
insurers including Anthem, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth Group and CVS
Health, which owns Aetna, are also pushing further into addressing social
determinants of health.
“For us, it's really part of our
effort to address root causes of an expensive healthcare system,” Health Care
Service vice president and community health and economic impact
officer Manika Turnbull said
in an interview.
The Blue Cross plans’ foodQ is
available to consumers who live in the targeted zip codes in the pilot. They
don’t have to be Blue Cross health plan subscribers to participate, Health Care
Service said.
Health Care Service is encouraging those
interested to pay a $10 monthly service fee that will get consumers free
delivery, details of the program say.
If you subscribe, you can then get two meals for $10. If you don’t subscribe,
you can still get the service but you have to pay $10 every time you order a
meal plus a $6 delivery charge, according to the announcement.
With every state in the country having an
“obesity prevalence” of 20% or more, Turnbull said the Blue Cross plans want to
make sure they are making all efforts to provide access to fresh and healthy
foods in so-called “food desserts” where affordable and nutritious meals are
often elusive.
Health Care Service, which owns Blue Cross and
Blue Shield of Illinois, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas and plans in
Montana, Oklahoma and New Mexico, isn’t ruling out expanding the service to
other markets. If the effort is successful during its six-month run, the goal
is to scale it up and offer it to more consumers and potentially Blue Cross
clients. Health Care Service is the nation's fourth-largest health insurer with
more than 16 million subscribers.
“We know a ZIP code is just as important as a
genetic code in determining a person’s health – impacting medical needs and
access to care,” Blue Cross Blue Shield Institute president Dr. Trent Haywood
said in a statement accompanying the launch of foodQ,“As a physician, I know I
can easily write a prescription, but what I don’t know is how am I going to
make sure patients have access to healthy meals they can afford and want to
eat. With the alarming rates of obesity and diabetes in our country, we need a
different approach to supporting healthy living, and this pilot program can
help remove the barriers that keep people from accessing healthy, affordable
and nutritious foods.”
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