Lifestyle Medicine Emerges as a Strategy to Achieve Health Equity
Lifestyle behavior interventions have the unique ability to address health status and social drivers of health. For example, food as medicine affects an individual’s health while also addressing nutrition security. Certainly, no medication can both improve health status and feed someone. The addition of payment for the screening of social drivers of health to the 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule is an important step toward connecting clinicians with community health–based organizations that can address factors that influence patients’ ability to adhere to lifestyle behavior care plans. Lifestyle medicine clinicians are poised to lead this effort because they are already having conversations with patients about their environment, living conditions, and access to nutritious food.
The changes coming to our healthcare system are exciting and long overdue. Lifestyle medicine is positioned to be at the forefront of this transformation now and in the future.
Dr. Patel, president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine in St. Louis, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.