What is a Prescription (Rx) for Food?
About FoodRx
By definition, a prescription is an instruction or recommendation from a medical practitioner that authorizes a patient to be provided a medicine or treatment. (Micha et al. 2017) As defined, by Dr. Nicole White, PharmD in an article in Pharmacy Review, titled "Produce Prescriptions, Food Pharmacies, and the Potential Effect on Food Choice," a prescription serves two important functions:
- A prescription provides a recommendation to the patient. A prescription conveys a message to the patient that what is being prescribed plays an important role in the prevention or management of the patient’s health.
- A prescription authorizes a patient to be provided a treatment. In our traditional health care setting, this generally involves a medication being provided to a patient. In the United States, many medications are only available by prescription. Thus without a prescription, the desired medication would not be accessible. A prescription also serves as an initial step in obtaining insurance coverage or financial support for the desired therapy.
As explained by Dr. White, food Rx, incorporated into a Food is Medicine (FiM) approach like medically tailored groceries and produce prescriptions (i.e. VeggieRx), share many similarities with medication prescriptions. Importantly, a food Rx conveys a message to the patient that healthy eating plays an important role in their care. By specifically Including this in an actual written prescription is communicating that food is just as important as medicine. She writes, "This is a novel message in our current health care system and has the potential to change a patient’s attitudes and beliefs about healthy eating." Likewise, the emerging model of many food Rx programs increases the accessibility and affordability of healthy foods.
There are a number of ways this is accomplished:
- Accessibility is improved by providing the foods within the medical clinic or the patient’s local pharmacy
- Affordability is improved through healthy food subsidies. Depending on the program, these subsidies range for example, from coupons that save a certain amount ($) per week on the purchase of fruits and vegetables to free-of-charge medically tailored meals
While it is acknowledged, food is available to everyone without a prescription and has not traditionally been financially supported as a medical treatment through health insurance, positive findings from the impact of produce prescriptions on health care quality and
cost are providing the impetus to support further expansion through Medicare and Medicaid.
Considerations of nutrition in chronic disease management:
"When it comes to health and longevity, what we eat may be the most important choice we make on a daily basis."
- Nicole D. White, PharmD, CDE, NBC-HWC, DipACLM, Pharmacy Review