59 – Food As Medicine w/ Lauren Driscoll

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Vic: Okay. Welcome to Health Further. We have a guest episode today. We’re going to learn about nutrition and food as medicine with Lauren Driscoll of NourishedRx. Uh, Lauren, thanks for doing this. Really appreciate it. Yeah, happy to be here, Ben. Uh, so let’s, uh, this, this guest episode is really about bringing in an expert like yourself.

Vic: Help the audience understand your background. What, what brings you to today?

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah, sure. So, um, my background is all health care. I, um, I’ve worked in different policy settings. I’ve worked in managed care. Um, I ran the Medicare business at Oxford Health Plans. And then after the Affordable Care Act passed, um, I worked at [00:01:00] Levitt Partners, which was It’s started by Governor Mike Leavitt, who’d been Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Lauren Driscoll: And I’d say at a high level, we were really helping private sector companies navigate the Affordable Care Act and really navigate value based care. But Vic, the common thread through all of those different healthcare settings for me has always been a focus on vulnerable populations. And, um, you know, that comes, that comes from two places.

Lauren Driscoll: One is from a value standpoint. I want to be helping the people who need the help the most. But, um, secondly, when you think about it in terms of health care reform and just the, uh, the the people who need it. You know, impact on our country at large. Um, it so much inefficient care is delivered to, um, folks who are, uh, socially vulnerable.

Lauren Driscoll: Uh, and, um, you know, in [00:02:00] particular, I’ve had a focus on people who are duly eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, and it’s just, you know, the, the, uh. The crime of, you know, lack of efficiency that people are just sort of ping ponging around the health care system, um, and as well as just not getting good care and therefore not getting good outcomes, um, it’s just super unfortunate.

Lauren Driscoll: And so I’ve always been, you know, drawn to really targeting on, on this population that needs it the most, but that’s also going to, you know, probably cost the most. So, as a result, I’ve been, you know, very focused on social drivers of health, um, you know, well before the private sector was, um, was focused on.

Lauren Driscoll: Before it was hip, before it was trendy

Vic: to talk about. Yeah, exactly. Right, it’s a shining object. It strikes me that if the goal is to really make the biggest impact on people’s lives, Or, uh, save the [00:03:00] most money or the combination of those things, the vulnerable populations, populations that, that need the most dually eligible is a, is a huge opportunity on both fronts.

Vic: Is that fair? 100%.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah. And it goes beyond dually eligible. I mean, we, we are now working with payers across all lines of business. Um, I mean, you have hourly workers and employer sponsored plans who are definitely food and nutrition insecure. Who have uncontrolled diabetes. So, you know, the, the duly eligible, um, you know, that’s particularly bad because you have Medicare and Medicaid and the perverse incentives of, you know, two different payers.

Lauren Driscoll: But, um, it’s definitely the, our, our target market, um, and the, and the market that the, the group of people I’ve always focused on, um, goes across all lines of business, which, which can be surprising to some people.

Vic: Yeah. And so the, um, the social drivers of [00:04:00] health, um, how did you start to focus on nutrition and food as the, the one social driver that you wanted to really spend, you know, the large part of your time on?

Vic: Cause there’s lots of pieces that you could focus on.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah. Well, a couple of, uh, a professional experience as well as a personal experience. Um, professionally at Oxford, when, when we, uh, um, When I was running Medicare, we started an outreach department that was really, um, screening members for, um, really social, social needs.

Lauren Driscoll: And it just became so apparent. And today this is so blindingly obvious. But at the time, um, we, we recognize the connection between food insecurity and uncontrolled diabetes. And there were just pockets of uncontrolled diabetes, particularly in New Jersey, where, where we had expanded. And so it was very frustrating to sort of [00:05:00] uncover this problem, but then at the time, really not be able to do anything about it.

Lauren Driscoll: There really was not the flexibility at that point for a health plan to be paying for food. And so we did, we certainly, um, connected people to community based resources, but, you know, many of the food banks at the time were primarily shelf stable, high carb food. And so, um, you know, I, I, I left that experience feeling, you know, like we, I just had not done enough.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, And, um, was, was just disappointed. And then, um, subsequently my son, um, had some extreme sort of diet sensitivity that, um, was just challenging developmentally and. Uh, we were we were really able to save the day through diet. And so the juxtaposition of the two, you know, not being able to help a bunch of [00:06:00] vulnerable seniors.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, but being able to help my, you know, my one relatively fortunate, um, and of one son. Um, really just didn’t sit well with me. Um, and then secondly, I just thought about it in practical terms, like what is going to be the most impactful and what’s going to be the most actionable. And so, um, you know, as you said, when we were talking before we started recording, um, food is so foundational to health and so the potential impact is, is just so, so great.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, and then the other thing is, is. Food is such a connector. So it really gives us the opportunity to connect with people. First of all, to open that, get the door opened and then to be connected and then to leverage that connection for actually much more than nutrition and food access. So those are all the reasons.

Vic: What I want to come back to that cultural and connection piece. [00:07:00] Talk to me about the first, um, pilot or first experiment or first time you tested this when you thought, gosh, this could be, this could be a big opportunity to make an impact and have a bit, have a role about valuable company.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah, for sure.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, So I had the good fortune of having my alma mater, the Mailman School of Public Health initially support our launch. Um, and, um, and through Mailman, I was connected to New York Presbyterian, and, um, we were basically able to do a small sort of incubation, um, with New York Presbyterian. And so it was a group of patients, all of whom had.

Lauren Driscoll: congestive heart failure diagnoses. And basically we, um, you know, we, we did sort of, um,

Vic: And around what year? I mean, I’m familiar with the Geisinger Fresh Food Pharmacy. Is it around that time or, uh, before that, a little after that? What [00:08:00] was the, Which would you? It was

Lauren Driscoll: a, it was a little bit after that. It was 2019.

Vic: Okay.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah, yeah. Um, but in any event, what we were able to find is that if we did a intake assessment and came to understand an individual’s life with respect to foods, so their taste, avoidances, cultural cuisine preferences. Um, you know, they’re, they’re,

Vic: uh, they’re religious, they’re, they’re the holidays, they celebrate so intertwined with food, right,

Lauren Driscoll: right, right.

Lauren Driscoll: And then functional dexterity and, you know, readiness for change, knowledge of nutrition, all of those things matter. So we basically figured out if we know enough about a person, we can figure out, you know, what is the best food to get to this individual at this point in time. Um, that will really serve almost as experiential education, like give people exposure to healthy food.

Lauren Driscoll: And, um, the initial [00:09:00] program was very small. It was, um, you know, just 40 patients, but we were able to show significant improvement and just patient reported outcomes and, um, very high levels of satisfaction. And so, um, You know, that, that, that gave us, you know, the beginnings of the, the formula for what is now nourished Rx.

Vic: Yeah. I find that the small, um, experiments I like to talk about, cause that’s where you can really, you can talk to all of the patients and really understand their experience, what they like, what they don’t like, what is their personal experience that’s maybe different than the, the labs that are coming back and reporting the outcomes.

Vic: Did you find that experience that you could really engage with them?

Lauren Driscoll: Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, we, uh, we got a lot of great, great feedback. Um, you know, that, that still serves us well today, actually. [00:10:00] But today as well, we, we do try to get as much feedback from our members as possible. In fact, we’re launching a member advisory committee where a number of our members are, um, reacting to different user interfaces, different, uh, protocols, and, you know, just giving us general.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, yeah, I like this. This could be better.

Vic: I wish this was this way. Yeah. Yep.

Lauren Driscoll: Yep.

Vic: Exactly. Back up for a minute. What, what is the mission and vision of, of NourishRx? What, what, what are you looking to do? What’s the mission?

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah. So our vision is a world where poor diet is no longer the top driver of death, disease, and disparities.

Lauren Driscoll: And our mission really is to drive health and health equity. One male, one person and one community at a time.

Vic: Okay. Excellent. And what’s the way you go to market or how is this packaged? [00:11:00] What’s the, what’s the business model? How do, how do you approach it?

Lauren Driscoll: Sure. We, um, we’re fully B2B2C. So we partner with, um, with health plans also with, um, risk bearing providers, really anyone who is, you know, taking risk on outcomes and, and costs.

Lauren Driscoll: And, um, we basically work with them to target a particular. subset of their of their membership that they believe would benefit from our services. So that ranges from people who have C. K. D. People who have C. H. F. Diagnosis, people with uncontrolled diabetes. Um, and then we’ve also done some pregnancy programs and, um, Or, or just more broadly, so you have different

Vic: programs and, uh, the payer or the provider taking [00:12:00] on risk and can work with you to pick the one they want to work on, or maybe a series of them.

Lauren Driscoll: Exactly

Vic: exactly.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, and we, um, you know, some of them are relatively broad. So, for Medicare advantage members who are eligible for special supplemental benefits for the chronically ill as designed by a particular health plan. And some are, you know, very targeted, like. BIPOC pregnancy or, you know, someone who’s screened as being at risk of food insecurity and also has a heart failure diagnosis.

Vic: And then, um, food and nutrition. There’s a lot of logistics and operations and patient education. That’s I think required, how do you address that to get your services out to the most people?

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah. So, um, so when I went to start nourish sharks, I really sort of assessed the food as medicine landscape. And.

Lauren Driscoll: My observation was that, [00:13:00] you know, there, there were, there were some great solutions out there, but they were really point solutions. So, you know, medically tailored meals are good for a particular point in time for a particular group of people. You have produce prescriptions, you have, you know, nutrition apps, for example.

Lauren Driscoll: But what, what I recognized, um, and I think is bearing out to be true is that for our target population, Uh, you know, folks who are socially vulnerable, therefore likely to be food and nutrition and secure. It’s really important to be able to provide a comprehensive solution. And so, um, what we built really was a technology stack a platform that can integrate amongst a number of partners.

Lauren Driscoll: So we integrate with some FinTech. We integrate with some tele nutrition. Um, we’re, uh, in discussions, uh, to have a partnership with a obesity medical telehealth company. We partner with an [00:14:00] array of prepared meal vendors. We, uh, partner with an array of grocery and produce vendors. And, um, so we’re, we are facilitating and integrating, but we are not actually bearing the responsibility of the food production or.

Lauren Driscoll: the actual delivery. But our system is, is, um, is facilitating and providing what is the very best food for an individual at that point in time on their sort of dietary journey.

Vic: Yeah. So vulnerable populations are inherently, it’s hard for them to access all the diversity of food that I have the luxury of accessing.

Vic: And you, so you plug into existing, uh, grocery stores, existing, uh, meal plans, existing, uh, technology providers, and sort of leverage that and then bring it to the, to the subscriber. Is that? Right.

Lauren Driscoll: And so, so basically we just have a [00:15:00] broader tool belt and just like a physical therapist, you know, when they see a patient in front of them, Customizes the course of therapy for that individual where we are able to do the same.

Vic: Okay. And how many states are you in or what’s the breadth of it right now? Uh, just in rough terms.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah, for sure. Um, because our partners are both national and state. And also local and scale. Um, we can cover all 50 states at this point. Um, I’m not sure we’ve had members and every single of the 50 states, but I think we’re probably up around 40.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, and we’re, we’re, uh, we’ve worked with. 10 different health plans at this point and served, you know, over over 10, 000 members. Yeah.

Vic: Wow. Okay. Uh, and then help me understand and help the audience to stand the, the benefits in maybe a case study or something that’s more tangible, like, It’s, it’s intuitive that [00:16:00] bringing people, uh, education, access, guidance to eat more healthy, they would feel better and then have better outcomes.

Vic: But do you have case studies or examples where that occurred?

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah, lots of them. Um, I’ll, I’ll give you one example. Um, we had a, Medicare Advantage member named Mike, um, who, was part of our congestive heart failure program. Um, he also had obesity and when, um, when we first, uh, enrolled Mike, we sort of wondered why he even enrolled because he was so resistant to sort of every step of the onboarding and, and skeptical initially.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah. Cause he

Vic: opted in to do it, but then he was, yeah. Right.

Lauren Driscoll: Right. And, um, And so over the course, this was a one year program and, um, I [00:17:00] think the food delivery component of this program was about two and a half, three months in duration, but, you know, he, he pretty quickly, we started with prepared meals and coaching and, and, um, you know, different nutrition education.

Lauren Driscoll: And he pretty quickly sort of exclaimed like, wow, you guys are giving me so many more vegetables than I would normally eat. And I’m realizing I’m, I’m, you know, having, I have a lot more energy than I used to have. And he, uh, he was losing weight. I think by, by month one, he had lost something like 10 pounds.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, and then just as he went along as we progressed and we, we progressed him then to groceries with meal prep guidance, um, he really, um, just got incredibly enthusiastic and, and really embraced the, the program and, uh, My favorite part of this story is that he had been [00:18:00] told as a child that if you add a spoonful of sugar to everything, it makes it better.

Lauren Driscoll: And he had a real nostalgic attachment to that. His grandmother and his mother both did that. But he came to recognize that he also had blood sugar levels problems. He came to recognize that he just couldn’t add that spoonful of sugar. And so he got really creative and started, um, mashing up blueberries to put in his vinaigrette that he had been always adding sugar to and, um, you know, thought it was so tasty that he actually ended up going around and And, you know, sharing the recipe and the strategy.

Lauren Driscoll: He’s almost an advocate to his

Vic: neighbors and friends. Exactly.

Lauren Driscoll: Exactly. Um, and he did initially, we, we administer a number of screens and validated assessment tools to collect patient reported outcomes. And he had scored high as being at risk of loneliness. And he admitted that he was lonely. He lived alone.

Lauren Driscoll: He was a [00:19:00] single man. Um. Anyhow, ultimately, over time, he continued to lose weight. He, um, reduced his diabetes medication and, um, when we circled back to him recently, because we wanted to see if he would be a member of our advisory committee. Um, he reported that he had bought an RV and he was traveling cross country, visiting friends and so, so no longer, you know, socially isolated.

Lauren Driscoll: He made sure he was taking a walk every day. And, um, it was funny. I w I was actually hoping I presented at health. I was hoping. That he had been a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas at one long ago, and he had said that he was going to go back to Las Vegas and visit Las Vegas. And so I was hoping that there would be an opportunity to actually get him on stage with me.

Lauren Driscoll: But, um, yeah, it was just, it was just a tremendous, uh, turnaround and we have story after story after story like that.

Vic: Yeah. [00:20:00] Yeah. So that makes me want to ask about the, um, kind of like the transition where the first couple of months You’re providing meal delivery and helping them understand the benefits of eating healthy, but then maybe you do you transition the subscribers to be able to shop for themselves and then be much more self sufficient.

Vic: How is that trajectory so that you, you create lifelong, uh, you know, people that can maybe with some support feed themselves, nurse them. Yeah,

Lauren Driscoll: well, so first of all, I think it’s important to call out that I think the real magic happens when someone has a paradigm shift, like behavior change is very hard, unless you start to sort of see the world differently.

Lauren Driscoll: And so it’s just really important that we drive that paradigm shift. And with, with our target population, um, you, you would be really surprised [00:21:00] by just not only the lack of access, but the lack of broad exposure to healthy food. Um, we, we hear all the time, things like, wow, I never would have bought a cauliflower.

Lauren Driscoll: I didn’t ever would have eaten

Vic: carrots or blueberries, even though they’ve never actually tried them. Yeah,

Lauren Driscoll: exactly. And, you know, it would have been a waste of money. I wasn’t going to try something new. And so, um, we try to make it super easy for someone to experience healthy food. At first, we also practice harm reduction theory where people tend to think of harm reduction theory and the concept in the, in the vein of, um, addiction treatment.

Lauren Driscoll: Basically you can’t go cold turkey. You have to make sort of micro step changes. Um, and so that’s, that’s what we support. We, we are basically making it super easy for people to eat. Well, they then have that aha moment. Like Mike did, you know, wow, you know, I’m eating more vegetables and I realized I have so much more [00:22:00] energy.

Vic: Yeah.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, you’re not,

Vic: you’re not saying you can’t don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t. You’re just saying like, try these vegetables, try the cauliflower, try. Basically. And then if you are full from kind of a well balanced. meal, you may not eat as much of the chips and other things that aren’t great for you.

Lauren Driscoll: Right.

Lauren Driscoll: Exactly. Well, and when people start to recognize they’re feeling better and we’re able to give them feedback because we’ve been tracking them, you know, with, with different, uh, We’ve been tracking different patient reported outcomes, so we can give them that feedback. Uh, people are then motivated to really want to prepare their own food and, um, and after that, you know, after they do recognize that, gosh, it’s actually pretty easy to do a healthy, tasty meal all on one sheet in the oven, um, then, you know, they [00:23:00] can go from receiving groceries and meal prep guidance from us to actually, you know, acquiring the food themselves, um, to the degree that they can.

Lauren Driscoll: And, and they’re more motivated

Vic: to find out where they need to go to get the food. Cause it may be possible, but it’s just not, it’s not right in the corner. Is that, is that fair? Like Thank you. Some neighborhood.

Lauren Driscoll: It depends on the neighborhood. But, um, we so we will support people getting enrolled in snap or in wick, for example, will support people on snap to basically use their E.

Lauren Driscoll: B. T. dollars so that they can get home delivered food. And so many more people now, thanks to the instacarts of the world and Walmart, um, who do accept those, uh, snappy B. T. Uh, that payment mechanism, um, are, you know, are able to get that food. And so we, we do, we just, we support not only how do you [00:24:00] prepare the food, but how do you best navigate your own food landscape?

Lauren Driscoll: And that, that even goes as far as, okay, you only have a dollar general to shop in. Here’s what we recommend you getting in the dollar general.

Vic: Yeah, so you can advise them on the best options there. Right. It may not be ideal, it’s the best they can do at that moment. Right, right, exactly. Interesting. Um, talk to me about, let’s shift back to the cultural aspects of food, because a lot of the Um, foods that we all grew up eating at holidays or that our grandparents made for they, they did wheat, they dropped in a spoonful of sugar, partially because they didn’t know partially because it just was a cultural thing before, um, the whole society knew that it was so important to health.

Vic: How do you make that transition where it’s culturally? Acceptable and sort of recognizes the kind of central part that [00:25:00] food has in culture while teaching them about maybe healthier options.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah, so it’s it’s really a two part process. First of all, whenever we have a concentration of members on a particular MSA, we are able to partner with local food partners.

Lauren Driscoll: And so we can basically vet and credential those partners. Um, and work with them to, uh, adapt recipes so that they, you know, sort of suit the nutrition guidelines that, that we need. And so, you know, that, that ranges from a Somali kitchen in the Twin Cities in Minnesota to, you know, a Cuban kitchen and in Southern Florida.

Lauren Driscoll: And um, so yeah, so that, is it

Vic: fair to say that all of these cultures, can be adapted to be healthy or can largely adapt be adapted?

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Or at least more

Vic: healthy than, than they [00:26:00] are. Yes,

Lauren Driscoll: absolutely. And, um, you know, the, the I think it might, our registered dietitians would agree with me here that, uh, sodium is the, is the biggest, uh, you know, sort of threat to healthy eating, um, that’s in most of the food that any of us eat outside of our homes.

Lauren Driscoll: So, um, you know, that’s, that’s one of the first, uh, targets for us when we’re, when we’re adapting recipes.

Vic: Yeah, I’ve taken a couple cooking classes with chefs here in Nashville just for fun. And that was the thing that really shocked me, is the amount of salt and butter that they are putting in. Um, because it, you know, it, it helps the taste in the restaurant.

Vic: And that’s okay for once in a while, but uh, Maybe it’s better to correct that over time.

Lauren Driscoll: Totally.

Vic: Yep. Totally. Um, okay. Talk to me about your [00:27:00] hopes for like where, uh, nourish RX can go. And also the, the food is medicine, uh, movement or the impact that this could have on, you know, honestly, our country needs a lot of help in getting better health outcomes.

Vic: I see food as a. Pretty inexpensive version of medicine. And I want to get your thoughts on like where this is headed.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah, for sure. But just, just to frame it and put it in context and agree with you, um, over 700, 000 people die annually from diet related disease. And to put that in context, that’s more people dying than died from COVID at the very height of the pandemic.

Lauren Driscoll: And so it just shows you, you know, how inured we are as a culture to diet related disease. And, and, you know, we run into this all the time where, um, You know, [00:28:00] people are like, wow, I just thought, you know, diabetes was sort of a regular part of aging. So there’s so much opportunity if we can really address nutrition, you know, in a way that it deserves to be.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah. So on a national scale, super exciting. You know, the Biden administration hosted the first conference on hunger, nutrition, and health in 50 years, um, in September of 22. Um, just, uh, this past January 31st, HHS hosted a Food is Medicine Summit. Um, so there’s a lot of, um, Of focus and attention and recognition.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, you know that that that there’s, uh, you know, just great potential here, especially in the context of value based care to really integrate nutrition and food access into health care delivery and, you know, really get a [00:29:00] flywheel going, um, you know, that where the return on investment for the health care payer is significant enough that that, you know, there’s a, there’s a real interest in just continuing these programs on a recurring basis.

Lauren Driscoll: Yeah. And we’re, we’re feeling that happen, you know, all over the place. I mean, at Nernst Rx, we’ve gone from doing pilots and generating proof points to now operating. Um, I think we’re up to, uh, six soon to be nine recurring revenue programs.

Vic: Yeah.

Lauren Driscoll: Well,

Vic: the great thing about delivering, uh, hard dollar return on investment and happier members is those pilots then turn into longer term thing because all payers and value based care organizations want both those things.

Lauren Driscoll: Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, so that’s, you know, where, where I see it going. I think that we, um, You know, the flywheel is getting [00:30:00] moving and you have more and more payers really focused on on food as medicine and recognizing that it’s not only an opportunity to drive down medical costs, but it’s an exceptional engagement opportunity.

Lauren Driscoll: It’s even an opportunity to drive a health plan retention. To drive really positive health plan, a member experience that, you know, actually ends up showing up in their star ratings and, um, and then now CMS is starting to hold the plans feet to the fire with respect to health equity and the health equity index.

Lauren Driscoll: And, um, I can’t think of a more actionable way to address health disparities, um, then, you know, by addressing nutrition security. Thank you.

Vic: Yeah, I agree with that. It it’s exciting to me because I think it might be a, the only effective counterbalance to the, the very large economic kind of machines of the food industry and the convenience, uh, [00:31:00] fast food and kind of instant gratification.

Vic: Which, you know, drives a lot of TV ads and social media ads, um, and there hasn’t been enough money on the healthy, you know, farm to table movement. But we spend so much money in healthcare and chronic disease that if we can tie those together, now we have a counterbalance to really sort of, at least, make it, you know, More, even more, more of a fair fight to bring healthy food out there.

Lauren Driscoll: Right, right. Yeah. I like to say that the perverse incentives of the healthcare system are, you know, interacting with the perverse incentives of the food system. Yeah. They’re fighting on each, basically exacerbating one another. Yeah, yeah. No, I, I totally agree with you. And, um, and it’s so, it’s not only, you know, we’re, we’re getting the flywheel going.

Lauren Driscoll: Um, in terms of payers recognizing that there’s a real return, um, for them, but also [00:32:00] just getting the word out, you know, more and more members, um, you know, socially vulnerable folks who have just not had exposure to healthy food, um, you know, very little exposure to nutrition as a science. Um, you know, we’re just, just getting the word out, we’ll, uh, we’ll, I think, continue the movement and, and, you know, improve

Vic: it

Lauren Driscoll: over time.

Vic: Yeah. So I’ve experimented with a decent amount with diet. Um, how many days does it take for you to get a member until they start feeling better? Is it somewhere between 30 and 60 days in my experiments is what it takes to sort of feel different? Is that close to what your science is?

Lauren Driscoll: I think, I think that’s right.

Lauren Driscoll: Yep. Yep. If you can get them

Vic: to focus and try to, you know, sort of suspend disbelief and trust Nurse Rx, maybe because a friend recommended them or because it’s a benefit they’re getting for two months. [00:33:00] Then they could have the experience my cast where his whole outlook on life, maybe, maybe that’s too ambitious, but I’m going to say that is what

Lauren Driscoll: I think.

Lauren Driscoll: I think it truly does. It did change this whole outlook on life.

Vic: Yeah. Um, okay. Then I want there’s one controversial topic. Uh, I want to get your take on, I’ve been following, everyone’s been following the GLP 1, you know, craziness. It’s like the perfect, uh, American values shot, but like you just take the shot and you lose weight without doing anything else.

Vic: I worry about that, not that I have any facts, but I just worry that it If it’s too good to be true, maybe it’s too good to be true. What are your thoughts? Like, is it a good way to catalyze this change of behavior and then we can get people eating healthy and taper, or is it going to be really, really a bad ending or somewhere in the middle?

Lauren Driscoll: Yep. [00:34:00] Well, um, So again, remember my target audience. Your target

Vic: audience is not focused. Well, no, they actually,

Lauren Driscoll: no, they are. I mean, 40 percent of employers are actually covering GLP runs for, for, um, employees. And so that includes, you know, hourly workers who, who, um, I cannot believe 40

Vic: percent are, uh, covering it.

Vic: But that’s

Lauren Driscoll: yeah, I mean, there can be all kinds of, um, you know, requirements associated with it. But yes, and I, I can’t tell you where I got that statistic, but I, I well, a significant number, whether it’s 40 or

Vic: 38

Lauren Driscoll: or 40. Yep. Yep. But, um, so. We’ve had as the way I see this GLP one craze is it’s almost like the straw that broke the camel’s back for the payers.

Lauren Driscoll: I mean, the, the cost of diet related disease, the cost of diabetes, obesity, kidney disease, um, [00:35:00] has been reaching a boiling point for quite some time. And yet, as we talked about before, it’s almost like we’re all inured to it. But now this like extra, you know, sort of eye popping cost of GLP ones is really getting the payers to focus.

Lauren Driscoll: So for us, it’s really been, um, interesting. It’s been like a whoosh of tailwinds for us because, um, payers are really hoping that, you know, programs like ours can be a companion therapy for That, um, might forestall the use of expensive pharmacotherapy or might foreshorten the use of, of expensive pharmacotherapy, or at least will improve the outcomes and then reduce, you know, the total cost of care over time.

Lauren Driscoll: And I

Vic: might require that a scriber, um, try this first or try it in, in as a companion or any combination of those [00:36:00] things. Is that right?

Lauren Driscoll: Right. And, and, um, You know, in obesity medicine, ideally you don’t require they do it beforehand, but you offer it to them. I mean, that would be like, you know, requiring someone who has hypertension to do something and not giving them, you know, meds for hypertension.

Lauren Driscoll: But, um, but it’s definitely being talked about for sure. And I’m super optimistic about. You know, working with our target market in that, um, because people have never had exposure to healthy food frequently, um, you know, we, we know a core cause of, of. the obesity they’re experiencing is likely to be poor diet, like lots of ultra processed food.

Lauren Driscoll: And so if we can work with someone and really shift their diet dramatically, either before or during the pharmacotherapy, um, I think the potential to really taper, um, you know, [00:37:00] the, the food, their, their diet pre pharmacotherapy. Um, could look very different, um, you know, a year in and see the potential to taper, I think is huge in particular.

Lauren Driscoll: I

Vic: think to me, that’s the optimistic view is that it is a catalyst to get people like to lose weight and feel the effects quickly, and then they start eating healthy and I don’t think it’s a good thing to be, you know, taking a shot once a day or once a week for your life. Tapering over time, I think, could be really good if we can balance it all and get it all to sort of fit together.

Lauren Driscoll: Right, right. No, I, I, I, I agree with you, but I do defer to, um, you know, the obesity medical experts who are out there, but Yes, that’s right.

Vic: I’m, uh I play a podcast host during the day, but I have no expertise with this stuff. Okay. Uh, what have we not covered that we should have covered around [00:38:00] nutrition and sort of affecting people’s health through food?

Lauren Driscoll: I think, um, I mean, I’ve alluded to this before, but I think, uh, many of us in healthcare don’t really recognize what a driver of, You know, poor outcomes and costly health care, nutrition and lack of food access is, and so I think, I think, you know, it’s just time for us to all open our eyes and really recognize that.

Lauren Driscoll: And, um, and then I think the, the second piece is that that’s just alarming is there’s such a prevalence of people who never had exposure to healthy food. And again, just. the, the, the science of nutrition is completely impractical and irrelevant to their lives because they [00:39:00] don’t have access to, or they’ve just never had exposure to healthy food.

Lauren Driscoll: And so I, I think just recognizing that reality. Kind of handed down from

Vic: parent to child, but like, um, if your parents were not, uh, focused on nutrition, except to get calories to get through the day. Um, Then that’s what you grew up with and you don’t really learn anything different. And it takes someone like you or someone at NourishRx to sort of break that trend and teach someone.

Lauren Driscoll: Give exposure. Yeah. Have someone have that paradigm shift.

Vic: Yeah. I like how, um, uh, you’ve shifted it and it’s, it’s a trend now. It used to be social determinants of health. Now it’s sort of the social drivers of health because it’s much more, uh, Empowering. Right. I can take control of my own nutrition as opposed to being like determined from some outside area.

Vic: Yep. And I think [00:40:00] that’s a, that’s an easier way for providers to, to think about it. Like, okay, if I’m going to treat these patients, um, what are the drivers that are contributing to their health or their, their poor health and maybe, um, their meds and exercise is one of them. Yeah. But nutrition is certainly a big one too.

Lauren Driscoll: Right. Absolutely.

Vic: Okay. Well, Lauren, thanks for doing this. I learned a lot. I think the audience will have learned a lot. Um, where is the best place for you to learn more about NourishRx?

Lauren Driscoll: Sure. Um, please go to our website, www. nourishrx. com. Okay. I’ll put that. We also have a pretty active, uh, LinkedIn account and, uh, and Instagram as well.

Vic: Okay, excellent. Well, uh, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. We will link to your website and LinkedIn and Instagram in the show notes. So people can just click right below and get over and learn more and follow it. They, they probably [00:41:00] have, um, programs with NeuroShot Rex, uh, with one of their payers in their local community.

Vic: Because you’re going to want us.

Lauren Driscoll: Very well, Meg. Yep. Yep. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.