Health insurance, SNAP benefits can pay for produce online via FarmboxRx
Farmbox Direct, FarmboxRx CEO on accepting SNAP, EBT payments online
More and more consumers can use their health insurance to buy fresh produce online and have it delivered to their homes, and now those who qualify can supplement that by using their SNAP/EBT cards online.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture approved Farmbox Direct’s healthcare initiative, FarmboxRx, to offer its fresh produce delivery nationwide to people whose health insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid plans, have this food benefit as part of the plan. That includes the Over the Counter, or OTC Network.
“We’ve gone from three health plans to 51 health plans in just 10 short months,” said Ashley Tyrner, CEO and founder of both Farmbox companies. “We do have rapid, rapid growth, but we’ve been preparing for this a long time.” The company is about to close on its Series A round of financing by the end of 2021.
Also, the USDA approved FarmboxRx as the only national fresh grocery retailer to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as a form of online payment, she said. Large national retailers such Amazon and Walmart have been accepting SNAP payments online for a few years now, Tyrner said, but don’t deliver fresh food to every part of the U.S., just shelf-stable food.
“Being that we are we are the only national grocery that delivers fresh produce nationally already, and we have that wide footprint of going everywhere FedEx goes, it's truly the way to tackle the food desert and food insecurity issue at its core,” she said.
SNAP benefits are given to qualified participants each month on an EBT card (electronic benefits transfer), which works like a debit card, according to Care.com. SNAP is a nutrition program, not a welfare cash-assistance program, but it’s still referred to as “food stamps,” available on a card.
Farmbox partners with health plans to help members with conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and social determinants of health, or SDOH. Those determinants are the environmental conditions where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship and age that affect health, functioning and quality-of-life outcomes and risks, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In 2020, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services allowed insurers to offer supplemental, SDOH-related benefits for Medicare Advantage plans. Companies taking advantage of this allowance so far include Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Humana and UnitedHealth Group, according to Georgetown University Health Policy Institute.
“Health equity is huge to us as well,” Tyrner said, “and really, just trying to get food to health plan members to change their outcomes, members who lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables, but also giving them education along their journey.”
FarmboxRx has a content development team and in-house clinicians who curate the content of each week’s farm box around the consumer’s chronic condition, such as a person with diabetes or an at-risk pregnant woman.
In these ways, FarmboxRx continues to address the socio-economic, geographic and health barriers that prevent people from taking control of their health, she said.
Tyrner’s mission is personal. Eleven years ago, she was pregnant and became a single mom living on food stamps in a rural food desert.
“My biggest initiative has always been to be able to accept food stamps online as a form of payment to give those who are living rural food deserts and who are food insecure a fighting chance,” she said. “There's a very common misconception that just because you're low income, you don't want to eat healthy. And it's like, no. They're not eating healthy because they don't have accessibility, or they don't have the funds to pay for healthy food, right?”
January 2020 was when Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, changed policy allowing Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans to offer food as a benefit.
“During that time, we have worked to really morph ourselves into a total wellness solution, like a health-tech company,” she said.
And all but a handful of states have transitioned to accepting online SNAP payments for fresh produce through the USDA pilot program, which was about a dozen states before the COVID-19 pandemic started, Tyrner said.
Farmbox Direct and FarmboxRx use Liberty Fruit Co. to manage operations and distribution centers in Kansas City, Kan.; Sacramento, Calif., and New Jersey. By the second quarter of 2022, the company plans to open distribution centers in Florida and Texas as well.
“Really, to just keep up with COVID delays from FedEx and UPS,” she said, “we're opening more facilities to be closer to the end user.”
Using healthy food — for at-risk populations without prior access to it— as medicine can help lower costs and claims to Medicare and Medicaid, which can lower the bill to taxpayers, she said.
Tyrner was recently asked by a venture capitalist, “’Do you think that eventually all health plans are just going to have to have grocery stores?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I hope so.’ Right? I hope so,” she said.
“But, I do think that the market is going there. There is a there is a big push now to offer other benefits outside of prescriptions or medications.”
