CMMI Announces MAHA ELEVATE Model and Encourages Clinical Pharmacy Proposals
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMS Innovation Center or CMMI) has announced another new payment model, Make America Healthy Again: Enhancing Lifestyle and Evaluating Value-Based Approaches Through Evidence (MAHA ELEVATE), to address chronic disease management. The model will provide around $100 million to fund 3-year cooperative agreements for up to 30 proposals that promote health and prevention for Medicare beneficiaries. The proposals will use evidence-based, whole-person care approaches, including functional or lifestyle medicine interventions (eg, de-escalation and comprehensive clinical pharmacy services) currently not covered by Medicare. These approaches are intended to support, not replace, the medical care received by Medicare beneficiaries. Interventions tested in MAHA ELEVATE will inform future Medicare coverage determinations or potential future CMS Innovation Center models designed to improve the health of beneficiaries and cut health care costs.
Model Design
MAHA ELEVATE is the first Innovation Center model to focus on proactive, holistic, patient-centered functional or lifestyle medicine approaches to support conventional care. To promote wellness and prevent illness, the model combines psychological, nutritional, and physical interventions together with self-care strategies to address the whole person rather than individual disease. Critical areas of focus include nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management, harmful substance avoidance, and social connection.
The cooperative agreements will be awarded to organizations with experience in integrating and measuring the impact of such approaches to health and wellness, with scientifically documented improvements in health. Awardees will work with CMS to create a plan for data collection, quality, measurement, recruitment, and cost containment. All proposals must incorporate nutrition or physical activity as part of the design. Three awards will be reserved for interventions that address dementia.
MAHA ELEVATE recipients will be organizations that either provide whole-person functional or lifestyle medicine services directly to patients or partner with other organizations to deliver services. Eligible MAHA ELEVATE applicants may include:
- Private medical practices
- Health systems and accountable care organizations
- Academic organizations
- Functional, lifestyle, preventive, and integrative medicine centers
- Federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics
- Community-based organizations
- State or local governments
- Indian Health Service/Tribal Services/Urban Indian Programs
- Senior living communities
This model provides an opportunity for clinical pharmacists to submit proposals to advance comprehensive clinical pharmacy services or comprehensive medication management. To be selected, applicants must demonstrate that they are experienced in delivering these interventions and that the interventions are safe and effective for the target population and supported by peer-reviewed literature. In addition, they must demonstrate experience with data collection or the ability to accurately collect and report data in a timely manner, with appropriate beneficiary safeguards. Cooperative agreements will be awarded in 2 rounds for 2 separate cohorts—the first starting in 2026 and the second in 2027.
MAHA ELEVATE recipients will select a chronic condition or conditions and identify the interventions they will offer to their Medicare patients. Clinical pharmacists may consider prioritizing the conditions that include assessments of nutrition and physical activity as part of the pharmacist patient care process, or those integrated into a care team with additional resources to refer for additional consultation if needed.
CMS will release a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) in early 2026 for the first cohort, and the voluntary model will launch on September 1, 2026. For additional information and updates specifically about the MAHA ELEVATE Model, including the release of the NOFO, please subscribe to the MAHA ELEVATE listserv.