What You Should Know:
– ATA Action, the advocacy arm of the American Telemedicine Association launches its new Virtual Foodcare Coalition.
– The advocacy group is dedicated to promoting policies that integrate virtual care with food and nutritional support to improve health outcomes, prevent disease, and manage chronic conditions.
Virtual Foodcare Coalition Overview & Founding Members
The Virtual Foodcare Coalition aims to establish healthy, nutritious food as a fundamental aspect of healthcare, accessible to patients regardless of their location. The coalition believes this integration can lead to more sustainable improvements in health outcomes and cost reduction through the use of evidence-based nutritional counseling and real-time food buying assistance facilitated by technology.
Founding members of the Virtual Foodcare Coalition represent a diverse group of thought leaders from healthcare, nutrition, and telehealth. These include:
- Albertsons® Companies, Inc.
- Circle Medical
- Foodsmart
- hims & hers
- Lifepoint Health
- Nixon Law Group
- Nourish
- Teladoc Health
Virtual Foodcare Coalition Policy Priorities
The Virtual Foodcare Coalition has outlined several key policy priorities:
- Support the Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) Act: Advocate for expanded Medicare coverage of nutrition therapy delivered through telehealth for various conditions where foodcare has shown to improve health outcomes and cost-effectiveness. This includes conditions such as obesity, prediabetes, and hypertension. The coalition also aims to reduce referral burdens and promote broader adoption of virtual foodcare through demonstration projects.
- Support Funding for Medically Tailored Food and Food Benefits Management: Advocate for federal and state agencies to implement long-term food benefits management programs focused on evidence-based medically tailored foods, integrated with virtual nutrition counseling.
- Rationalize SNAP, WIC, and School Meals; Align with Clean Food Initiatives: Promote permanent online access and digital enrollment pathways for the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to increase reach and usability. The coalition emphasizes the importance of virtual access to these programs for vulnerable populations, particularly when combined with telehealth workflows, remote patient monitoring, and digital foodcare platforms. Additionally, the coalition advocates for aligning these benefits with clean food initiatives to improve the effectiveness of nutrition support programs across various settings.
- Expand Reimbursement and Incentive Models for Telenutrition, Remote Monitoring Devices, Remote Therapeutic Monitoring and Foodscripts: Advocate for coverage parity for telenutrition by leveraging evidence demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) of virtual foodcare. This includes promoting cost-effective, personalized diagnostics and remote monitoring tools, such as continuous glucose monitors, and expanding remote therapeutic monitoring to include comprehensive nutrition monitoring. The coalition also urges policymakers to create provider incentives and support foodscripts, and encourages electronic health record (EHR) vendors to integrate virtual foodcare tools into clinical workflows.
- Facilitate Cross-State Nutritional Healthcare Delivery: Address barriers to the delivery of virtual nutrition services across state lines by dietitians, pharmacists, and healthcare providers.
These policy priorities build upon the ATA and ATA Action’s Policy Principles for Virtual Foodcare, released in September 2024, which provide a framework for integrating personalized dietary interventions and nutritional guidance into the healthcare system through telehealth platforms.
This coalition of industry thought leaders aims to effectively integrate healthy, nutritious food as a fundamental component of healthcare, regardless of the patient’s location, to help maintain health, prevent disease, and assist with managing chronic conditions,” said Kyle Zebley, executive director, ATA Action, and senior vice president, public policy, the ATA. “Our Virtual Foodcare Coalition seeks to improve health outcomes and reduce costs more sustainably, by promoting the use of evidence-based nutritional counseling and real-time food buying assistance through innovative technology.”
