Impact of Proactive Outreach on Enrollment in and Utilization of the Flex Nutrition Program for Patients With Food Insecurity and Nutritionally Dependent Chronic Health Conditions

The Medicaid ACO Flexible Services Program is a pilot that allocates state funding to address certain health-related social needs, in the domains of food and housing, with the goal of improving health outcomes and reducing the total cost of health care for members. The Flex Nutrition Program specifically allows members with a health needs-based criteria (such as a complex physical health need, repeated Emergency Department use or a high-risk pregnancy) who are experiencing food insecurity (defined as a positive screening on the Hunger Vital Sign questionnaire) to receive nutritional support.

At MGH, the investigators have partnered with 3 Social Service Organizations (SSOs) to deliver 3 types of nutritional support. Community Servings provides medically tailored meals with nutritional counseling. Fresh Food Generation provides healthy food boxes. Fresh Connect provides debit cards with monthly allotments that can be used to purchase produce.

The current workflow for identifying and enrolling appropriate ACO members relies largely on referrals from Primary Care Teams. Role groups who respond to social needs within primary care, such as Community Health Workers, integrated Care Managers, Community Resource Navigators and Emergency Department Navigators (collectively herein referred to as Care Managers), have been trained on the program's eligibility requirements and encouraged to offer enrollment to the patients they are working with. However, this current method in inadequate to identify many eligible patients. Only a very small subset of patients (less than 10%) with social needs identified on their primary care screening questionnaire are referred to Care Managers. In addition, Care Managers do not have any consistent method for identifying patients and offering the Flex Nutrition Program.

For patients interested in enrollment, Care Managers refer to two dedicated FLEX staff. Upon receipt of a referral, these two staff complete a Verification, Planning and Referral (VPR) form in EPIC, which generates a referral for the appropriate SSO, who subsequently reaches out to enroll the patient.

The investigators seek to understand if proactive outreach to eligible patients increases enrollment into and utilization of the Medicaid ACO Flex Nutrition Program. To answer this question, the investigators will identify eligible members (patients in the Medicaid ACO with a positive food insecurity screening plus one or more defined health conditions, see Inclusion criteria for more details) via an EPIC Report and randomize them into 3 cohorts. Cohort A will receive high intensity proactive outreach via phone, Cohort B will receive low-intensity outreach via letter and Cohort C will receive usual care with no proactive outreach. The investigators will use an EPIC report to generate a list of eligible patients, defined as Adult and Pediatric patients cared for within MGH Primary Care in the Medicaid ACO with a health needs-based criteria and a positive screening for food insecurity. Patients already enrolled into the Flex Nutrition program will be excluded.