With support from private and government grants, pilot program earns Medicaid Waiver approval to deliver healthy food to underserved New Yorkers.
NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / July 23, 2025 / EngageWell IPA, an Independent Provider Association and Behavioral Health Care Collaborative committed to addressing health disparities, is scaling its innovative digital food-as-medicine program, powered by the Tangelo platform, across New York City through the NYS 1115 Medicaid Waiver. The program builds on an early public-private pilot that demonstrated strong outcomes and helped lay the groundwork for broader implementation. EngageWell facilitated the pilot's design and evaluation, and its initial success opened the door for expansion under the state's 1115 Waiver. Today, the program addresses food and nutrition insecurity and chronic illness in historically underserved communities-bringing healthy food directly to people's homes while generating critical data to support cost-effectiveness and long-term sustainability.
For decades, EngageWell's network of health and human service providers has recognized the vital connection between food access, chronic illness, and community health-operating food pantries, congregate meal programs, and medically tailored meal services as core components of wraparound care. When COVID-19 shuttered food pantries and soup kitchens across NYC in 2020, the urgent need for a more nimble, equitable food safety net became clear.
In response, EngageWell leadership made food security a core organizational value and launched a pilot to distribute healthy food via a digital marketplace. With a combination of private and government funding, EngageWell partnered with Tangelo, a full-stack food-as-medicine platform, to bring the vision to life.
Since December 2022, the program has delivered over 22,550 boxes of fresh produce and pre-prepared healthy meals-equating to more than 221,000 meal equivalents-directly to the homes of over 1,200 unique recipients across all five boroughs of New York City.
"Food and nutrition insecurity is not just a social issue-it's a public health crisis," said Christopher Joseph, Executive Director of EngageWell IPA. "Access to healthy food is a human right, and our work with Tangelo not only meets immediate needs but builds a blueprint for scalable, reimbursable, food-as-medicine models that can be embedded in Medicaid delivery systems. This is what true health equity looks like."
Early analysis of the program shows promising outcomes: participants demonstrate improved management of health conditions and decreased average healthcare costs. With this success, the program will now be scaled and sustained through the New York State 1115 Waiver Social Care Network, under Public Health Solutions, reaching eligible Medicaid beneficiaries across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.
"Tangelo is proud to power this innovative model," said Raj Madhure, Head of Growth at Tangelo. "We've built a platform that enables an end-to-end experience for Food as Medicine, from measuring and prescribing to delivering food interventions to individuals. Our vision is to amplify the power of food as medicine as a true clinical service by enabling the healthcare ecosystem to adopt diet quality as a vital sign and prescribe food to treat illness and chronic disease. Together with EngageWell, we're showing what's possible when healthcare and food systems truly integrate."
EngageWell IPA continues to pursue partnerships and policy changes that could make food-as-medicine a standard, reimbursable Medicaid benefit-ensuring that what started as an emergency response becomes a cornerstone of equitable care.
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About EngageWell IPA
EngageWell IPA is a New York-based Independent Provider Association and Behavioral Health Care Collaborative advancing health equity through partnerships with community-based providers. Focused on innovation and integrated care, EngageWell envisions a trauma-informed, harm reduction-rooted health system that breaks the links between poverty, structural racism, and poor health.
Media Contact: Christopher Joseph, christopher@engagewellipa.com
About Tangelo
Tangelo is a diet quality improvement platform that optimizes Food as Medicine outcomes and enables people to live healthier. Our platform enables an end-to-end clinical solution by measuring, prescribing, and delivering food as medicine interventions and proving impact. Tangelo partners with health plans, clinical providers, and government agencies across the country to tackle the number one cause of chronic disease-poor diet quality.
Media Contact: Catriana Cantu, catriana.cantu@jointangelo.com
SOURCE: EngageWell IPA
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