HAN member Trinity Health’s In Lieu of Services Network is increasing access to fresh, affordable produce from local organizations through Medicaid’s In Lieu of Services (ILOS) program in Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Grand Rapids. Michigan requires Medicaid health plans that provide ILOS services to direct at least 30% of their referrals to a local provider, which helps Trinity’s network to keep the dollars circulating in the local economy. Trinity Health hopes this important program can serve as a replicable model to increase health and prosperity.
From the Common Ground article:
Katelyn Smoger, Trinity Health’s statewide director of food is medicine and farms, says the project was a natural fit for Trinity Health. She says the health system has been doing food access and food security work since 2010, and farms operate on several of Trinity Health’s hospital campuses. Smoger says ILOS “felt like a full-circle moment” for her and her colleagues, allowing Trinity Health to use its existing billing and legal teams to make it easier for some of the health system’s many smaller partner CBOs to provide healthy food to Medicaid recipients.