Food as Medicine: Elevance Health & NACHC Integrate Nutrition in Care

Elevance Health, Inc. ELV is taking a bold step in the delivery of primary care by integrating Food as Medicine into its care model. By partnering with the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), the company aims to integrate nutrition into treatment plans, along with prescriptions and diagnostics. This program expands ELV’s existing regional Nourished Well initiative. Elevance Health Foundation will also support NACHC with a six-month Food as Medicine grant.

Through this collaboration, primary care teams at Community Health Centers (CHCs) will be trained to effectively screen and connect Medicaid patients with personalized nutrition support. This includes medically tailored meals, coaching and lifestyle interventions.

As CHC is serving around 34 million Americans, this program aims to reduce food and nutrition insecurities while enhancing chronic disease management and preventive health outcomes. By incorporating these services within the care processes, ELV and NACHC are breaking down barriers to access and establishing a sustainable model for achieving long-term health outcomes.

Looking ahead, ELV, NACHC and CHCs aim to serve as a scalable national model that promotes food-based clinical care by developing a Nutrition Center of Excellence. If a nutrition-focused strategy turns out to be effective, it might open the door to wider acceptance across the U.S. healthcare system. ELV’s individual medical membership rose 5.2% year over year in the second quarter of 2025 to 1.3 million. We expect the metric to rise 0.7% year over year in 2025.

How Are Competitors Faring?

Some of ELV’s competitors in the medical space are Centene Corporation CNC and The Cigna Group CI.

Centene’s high-acuity Medicaid membership grew 6.2% year over year in the second quarter of 2025. Its total membership was around 28 million as of June 30, 2025. Centene’s total revenues rose 22.4% year over year in second-quarter 2025.

Cigna reported 3.2% year-over-year growth in international health customers in the second quarter of 2025. Its total medical customers were around 18 million as of June 30, 2025. Cigna’s total revenues rose 11% year over year in the second quarter of 2025.

Elevance Health’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of ELV have lost 16.1% in the year-to-date period compared with the industry’s decline of 1%.

From a valuation standpoint, Elevance Health trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 9.62, down from the industry average of 15.08. ELV has a Value Score of A at present.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Elevance Health’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $30.59 per share, implying a 7.4% decline from the year-ago period.

The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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