Member organizations of the California Food are Medicine Coalition (CalFIMC) have been building partnerships with health plans over the last several years because food and nutrition have become essential areas of focus in whole-person health care approaches. Many of their partnerships have emerged by developing grants-based relationships or participation in community health improvement initiatives. However, health plans now have more flexibility and a greater desire to incorporate meals and nutrition services as formal benefits for their covered beneficiaries. CalFIMC partnered with Collaborative Consulting to accelerate their understanding of current opportunities and anticipate future possibilities.  

Through a series of key informant and subject matter expert interviews with leaders and staff of California health plans, we gained insights into how CalFIMC and its members can best orient their organizations and services to optimize partnership opportunities and outcomes. We combined these insights with market and performance data of Medi-Cal managed care and Medicare Advantage plans to generate a user-friendly database to track and evaluate partnership opportunities across the state, accelerating CalFIMC’s market understanding. Our market research entailed analyzing two of CalFIMC’s primary competitors in the market.

Taking our research, a step further, we profiled several health plans to understand their histories, cultures, partnership preferences, and population health strategies to help shape CalFIMC’s partnership development tactics. The summary of our research revealed a market with significant opportunity for partnerships for CalFIMC, with a higher-than-expected share of health plans in the “ready and willing to partner” category.

The result of this project is supporting CalFIMC to prioritize their emerging partnership opportunities, apply the strategic considerations to build its network’s capacities, and reaffirm its unique role in the home-delivered meal and nutrition services market.

If you would like to learn more about how your organization or network can better assess and prioritize earned revenue opportunities with health care organizations, analyze current and emerging competitors, or build the infrastructure for generating market intelligence, get in touch.