The Case Study Points to the Success of the CalAIM Project in Lowering ER Visits and Inpatient Stays
L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan, is proud to be the subject of a case study titled Building Partnerships to Advance Nutrition in California’s CalAIM Waiver by the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation (CHLPI) at Harvard Law School. CHLPI wanted to learn more about the partnership L.A. Care has with Project Angel Food, a community-based organization in Los Angeles providing medically tailored meals to L.A. Care members with certain chronic illnesses.
CHLPI found that, while it is still early in the evaluation process, emergency room visits and inpatient hospital stays have dropped among those receiving the medically tailored meals. In addition, member satisfaction with and adherence to the program is high.
Project Angel Food started providing medically tailored meals for L.A. Care members with congestive heart failure in May of 2018. With the launch of CalAIM in 2022, which includes Community Supports such as Medically Tailored Meals/Medically Supportive Food, the collaboration expanded to include L.A. Care members with chronic kidney disease and diabetes. Since the beginning of the partnership, L.A. Care has awarded grants to Project Angel Food to ensure it could serve more of its members.
The CHLPI case study explored opportunities and lessons learned during early implementation of their Community Supports partnership. The study reviewed everything from credentialing of the community-based organization, to authorizations for the service, billing for services rendered, and evaluation of the project. The case study is a perfect example of how CalAIM is leading to better health outcomes for Medi-Cal beneficiaries in California.
You can read the entire case study here.