More than 17.5 million households in the U.S. face food insecurity — an issue that takes a heavy toll on the health of its victims and creates a considerable financial burden on the healthcare system.
According to a recent report from Toledo, Ohio-based ProMedica President and CEO Randy Oostra, the healthcare industry can make a big difference in combating hunger in the United States.
"Healthcare must focus on the most common social determinants — starting with hunger as a health issue." wrote Mr. Oostra. "Strategic, purposeful and intentional changes can create an improved model to deliver better public health care."
The report also outlines five ways the industry can make changes that would impact the issue at hand, highlighted below.
1. Change Community Health Needs Assessments and develop appropriate interventions that include hunger screenings and increased focus on social determinants.
2. Include hunger screenings in Medicare value-based reimbursements, Medicare facilities and community benefit reporting.
3. Add new physician slots that are based predominantly in primary care, with an emphasis on social determinants training.
4. Launch a public healthcare demonstration project that fixes Medicare and Medicaid payments for designated communities where providers have adopted a public healthcare focus. Also, assign case managers to patients and actively address the social determinants of health, beginning with hunger.
5. Create Medicaid and Medicare incentives to encourage personal responsibility, similar to the incentives being developed in the private sector.
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