A Food is Medicine program at Albany, NY-based Regional Food Bank is succeeding in helping diabetes patients measurably improve their health.
The food bank’s 12-week Food Farmacy program provides patient households with weekly boxes of healthy food, along with weekly virtual nutrition counseling sessions. Results show patients significantly improving their blood sugar levels, while losing weight.
Positive results like these are critical to the ongoing development of Food is Medicine initiatives, which are rooted in the assumption that increasing access to healthy food will ultimately improve the health of the community, while also lowering healthcare costs. While not part of a formal randomized controlled study, Regional Food Bank’s results add to a growing body of research showing that Food is Medicine efforts can positively influence public health.
“What we’ve seen from partnerships with our health providers is that sometimes patients don’t necessarily need medicine,” said Michael-Aaron Poindexter, Chief Program Officer at Regional Food Bank. “Sometimes they just need access to healthy foods, fruits and vegetables.”
Under its Food Farmacy program, the food bank is working with Albany, NY-based St. Peter’s Health Partners to identify diabetes patients who also live in food-insecure households. Patients have the weekly food boxes delivered to them, or can pick them up on site at the hospital after doctor’s visits. Registered dieticians run the weekly counseling sessions to ensure patients are making healthy choices, even once the food packages run out.
Over a series of cohorts, the food bank has tracked the health outcomes of the intervention for 166 patients. Those patients had an overall decrease in blood sugar levels of 1.7%, an amount considered significant, given the American Diabetes Association’s recommended guidelines of blood sugar levels of less than 7%. Patients were also found to lose an average of nine pounds and have an increased intake of nutritious foods.
“We were very pleased with the outcomes, as they were better than expected,” Poindexter said.
The program is just one aspect of Regional Food Bank’s involvement in Food is Medicine. In 2024, the food bank worked with eight healthcare partners (up from two the year before) to distribute more than 100,000 pounds of nutritious food to patients, usually through on-site pantries at the healthcare provider. It also runs a small produce prescription program that delivers medically tailored groceries to patients twice a month via DoorDash and offers monthly check-ins with the food bank’s registered dieticians.
As the food bank’s Food is Medicine efforts have expanded, so have opportunities for funding. Regional Food Bank is one of 21 food banks participating in Feeding America’s Food as Medicine 3.0 program, funded by Elevance Health Foundation. It receives funding from that program, as well as other grant and foundation funding. The food bank has also been able to take advantage of funding that became available in January 2025 through New York State’s Medicaid 1115 waiver program.
New York’s 1115 waiver program is unusual in setting up nine so-called “social care networks” throughout the state, which are charged with connecting Medicaid patients to community services, like nutrition and housing. The social care networks have been a driving force, collectively adding 1,100 service providers throughout the state to screen Medicaid members and navigate them to new services. So far in 2025, 300,000 Medicaid members have been screened, with 44% of them identified as having an unmet need, mostly related to nutrition, according to an update provided by Martina Ahadzi, Program Manager at the New York State Department of Health in a recent webinar hosted by the New York State Food as Medicine Coalition.
Under the 1115 waiver, which is expected to last through 2027, Regional Food Bank has begun working with a social care network provider in upstate New York to receive new patient referrals. It also expects to begin working with another social care network provider in a more southern part of its territory, which covers 23 counties and 41% of the land mass of New York State. “Our goal is to do as much as we possibly can from a capacity standpoint, so that we can reach as many Medicaid patients as we can in the next two years,” Poindexter said.
One way the food bank is increasing its capacity is by working with United Parcel Service to deliver food boxes. Every Tuesday, UPS arrives to pick up boxes of food, fortified with cold packs, that it delivers to referred patients. While the volume of deliveries is currently low, the goal is to eventually deliver to 500 to 600 patients a week. “We thought, ‘Let’s not reinvent the wheel on deliveries. There’s a partner here we can work with to do that,’” Poindexter said.
Regional Food Bank expects to get reimbursed for all aspects of the food boxes provided through the 1115 waiver, including the food, cold packs, packaging and shipping costs. It expects to receive a reimbursement of $97 to $146 for “food-prescription” boxes, and $30 to $78 for “pantry-stocking” boxes, Poindexter said.
From an infrastructure standpoint, the food bank had to scale up to make sure it had the human resources to handle the growing demands of its Food is Medicine initiatives. The program is led by Samantha Monks as Director of Health and Nutrition and aided by a newer position of community health program manager.
To Poindexter, the investment and effort are well worth it. “We are 100% committed to doing our part to drive down the cost of healthcare, improve patient health and strengthen community partnerships,” he said. – Chris Costanzo
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