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March 27, 2024
4 min read
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Partnership to provide early allergen introduction kits to families on Medicaid

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Key takeaways:

  • The partnership will begin in Missouri.
  • Families will receive early introduction kits starting at their 4-month visits.
  • Food allergy prevention saves long-term costs.

Missouri families on Medicaid will be able to introduce their infants to common food allergens such as peanut, egg and milk for free through Access for All, a partnership between Home State Health and Ready. Set. Food!

Guidelines encourage families to introduce all infants at risk for food allergy to potential allergens between ages 4 and 6 months to prevent food allergy, which may be difficult for families on Medicaid.

baby being fed
Introducing infants to food allergens can reduce their odds for developing food allergies later. Image: Adobe Stock

“They’re not eating allergens early and often as much, compared to other families,” Daniel Zakowski, CEO and cofounder of Ready. Set. Food! told Healio.

Daniel Zakowski

Barriers to allergen introduction for these lower-income families include a lack of infant-safe foods and less accessible education about early introduction, Zakowski said.

Affordability is another issue, Zakowski added. For example, the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children does not cover peanut butter for children aged younger than 1 year, he said.

This inability to introduce their infants to food allergens early exposes these families to greater risks for developing food allergy later, with greater consequences for families on Medicaid.

“They actually end up with about two and a half times more [emergency room] visits and greater hospitalization costs as a result of their food allergens because they don’t have access to EpiPens. They don’t have access to allergen-free foods,” Zakowski said. “There aren’t really other support mechanisms to help them in the right way.”

Ready. Set. Food! will kick off its Access for All program by providing its allergen introduction kits to families on Medicaid in Missouri through local providers in Missouri facilitated by Home State Health.

“Our product is a powder of allergenic protein that dissolves in breast milk, formula or food. So that way, you don’t have to add anything new to the baby’s diet,” Zakowski said. “It has virtually no taste, and it’s very easy.”

The stage 1 and 2 kits include peanut, egg and milk proteins because these three allergens comprise 80% of childhood food allergies, Zakowski said. The stage 3 kits include tree nuts, sesame, wheat and other allergens.

“Our program with Medicaid, though, focuses on just the stage one and two products because peanut, egg and milk have such a high prevalence,” Zakowski said. “That’s where there’s the best [return on investment] for Medicaid and also to make it a more long-term, sustainable program.”

Home State Health will work with providers to provide access for Ready. Set. Food! distribution.

Health care systems in Missouri that work with families on Medicaid will stock these kits and offer them to families with infants when they come in for their visits at age 4 months, which medical guidelines call the appropriate time for allergen introduction. Families also will be offered these kits at age 6 months.

When families receive these kits, their physicians will offer them education as well.

“That’s the thing that’s so important about having the provider connection,” Zakowski said. “Their provider will be able to teach them about food allergy prevention when they hand them the kit.”

The program began rolling out in February, and “providers are really enjoying having an easy solution to offer parents, and parents are interested,” Zakowski said.

Ready. Set. Food! has been training health care providers about how its kits fit into early introduction strategies as well.

“Everyone is generally familiar with the concept of early allergen introduction. But we want to make sure that they know exactly how to explain our product the right way, how to explain it to the parents that they can use us as a resource going forward,” Zakowski said.

“Given our extensive work with health care systems previously, we have a lot of experience doing that, and we’ve been able to do that with these health care systems in Missouri,” he continued.

Ready. Set. Food! is looking to expand this program into other states with Medicaid providers, but the state-by-state patchwork of regulations for dietary supplements will mean that some states can launch earlier than others.

“Our goal is to take this fully national as fast as we can, but it’s going to be different timelines in different states, depending on their regulatory framework,” he said.

Now that several states are considering legislation that would mandate insurance coverage of these early allergen introduction kits, Zakowski expects some of these regulatory pathways to become unblocked.

Zakowski also said that making early allergen introduction accessible to low-income families has always been one of the company’s key goals, with outreach including thousands of donated kit subscriptions to families in need in Texas.

“But we really knew that we needed something that was going to be more sustainable in the long term so we can make sure that every family in need could get access to our product,” he said.

In the long run, by preventing the development of food allergies through these kits, payers save money because of the reduced need for ED visits due to allergic reactions, and reduced need to prescribe epinephrine autoinjectors, Zakowski said.

Food allergies impose a $2.48 billion annual burden on the health system overall, he said, with missed work and school days exacerbating these costs as well.

Zakowski also noted how valuable and productive this collaboration has been between Ready. Set. Food! and Home State Health with its chief medical director, Jennifer Wessels, MD, MHA, FAAFP, and several local Missouri providers.

“We’re excited to have a great champion in Dr. Wessels who really understood how life-changing this could be for families who can least afford to have their baby develop food allergies,” Zakowski said.

Reference:

For more information:

Daniel Zakowski can be reached at daniel@readysetfood.com.