CMMI Models and Nutrition

Summary:

US Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) priorities include empowering people to drive and achieve their own health goals, with a focus on evidence-based prevention interventions like nutrition. This American Society on Aging Generations Now blog takes a deep dive into how new CMMI payment and service-delivery models are incorporating nutrition.

Key Takeaways:

• CMMI models are intended to move the health system away from volume-based care and toward value-based care.
• Evidence-based prevention, empowering people to achieve health goals, and driving choice and competition are the three pillars guiding CMMI models.
• The MAHA ELEVATE CMMI model focuses on whole-person functional and lifestyle medicine, specifically including nutrition, physical activity, and related behavior-change strategies.

Related Questions & Answers

• What is CMMI?
  The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) —often called the Innovation Center—is a division of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) created under the Affordable Care Act. Its mission is to test new payment and service delivery models that aim to reduce healthcare costs while preserving or improving the quality of care for people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP.
• Why are CMMI models important for older adult nutrition and care?
  CMMI models offer opportunities to improve nutrition and health outcomes for an aging population because they often focus on recipients with high-risk, high-cost, and complex needs, including many older adults with chronic conditions who are at risk of poor nutrition.
• What is the CMMI strategy to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA)?
  CMMI introduced the Innovation Center’s Strategy to Make America Healthy Again in May 2025, outlining their vision to use what is learned and build a health system, “that empowers people to drive and achieve their own health goals.” This vision encompasses various age groups (including those aging into Medicare and those ages 80 and older), populations, geographies, and those with special needs or disabilities. To see this vision to fruition, CMMI designated three pillars as guidance for their future evidence-based programs: 1) promote evidence-based prevention; 2) empower people to achieve their health goals; and 3) drive choice and competition for people.
• What nutrition-focused opportunities are there in the future with CMMI models?
  Across the new CMMI models, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is signaling a critical and consistent shift: nutrition is no longer peripheral. While some CMMI models (like the TEAM model) address nutrition indirectly, others—specifically the BALANCE, MAHA ELEVATE, ACCESS, and LEAD models—explicitly recognize nutrition as a clinical, preventive, and cost-saving intervention. Together, these models illustrate how CMMI is testing ways to embed nutrition into payment design, care delivery, and long-term health outcomes, all which promote healthy aging and better support older adults and their families.

Disclosures:

• Amy Shepps, MBA, RDN, is the director of corporate reimbursement for Abbott in Washington, DC, USA.
• Kimberly Iles, MS, RDN, is the senior manager of nutrition services coverage at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in Chicago, IL, USA.