CMS targets chronic care, nutrition in ‘MAHA’ Medicare payment model

Modern Healthcare – Thursday, December 11, 2025
By Bridget Early

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will devote about $100 million to support chronic disease initiatives for fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries, the agency announced Thursday.

The Make America Healthy Again: Enhancing Lifestyle and Evaluating Value-based Approaches Through Evidence, or MAHA ELEVATE. MAHA ELEVATE is the latest in a slew of new payment models from CMS, joining others focused on digital health, chronic conditions and prior authorizations.

The program is slated to launch in September and run for three years. CMS will fund up to 30 pilot projects that it will consider scaling up for future Medicare coverage determinations or other models. The demonstration furthers Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” priorities, including a focus on whole-person health, nutrition and chronic care.

“For decades, health policy has focused too much on flashy, expensive surgeries and too little on the unglamorous work of prevention,” Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Director Abe Sutton said in a video news release.

The proposals CMS aims to test include interventions in areas not typically covered under fee-for-service Medicare, such as nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management, harmful substance avoidance and social connections. Participants will be required to collect quality and cost data.

Winning applicants will receive approximately $3 million each over three years. Programs should supplement not supplant conventional medical care, CMS specified. The agency will open applications in early 2026 and award a second set of grants in 2027.

“By testing whole-person approaches to care, MAHA ELEVATE aims to help transform the U.S. healthcare system to one that proactively addresses the root causes of chronic disease rather than reactively addressing symptoms,” CMS wrote on its website.

CMS is seeking applications from an array of groups, such as private medical practices, health systems, accountable care organizations, community health centers and rural clinics.

Academic organizations, state and local governments, senior living communities, community-based organizations, Indian Health Service programs, and “functional, lifestyle, preventive and integrative medicine centers” are also eligible.

Applicants must identify one or more chronic conditions they seek to address and offer data indicating successful outcomes. All proposals must include nutrition or physical activity. Three awards will be reserved for dementia interventions.

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