Today, more than half of older Americans get their Medicare coverage through private Medicare Advantage plans. In 2020, that program made a sweeping policy change, allowing these plans to offer supplemental benefits beyond traditional medical care, including groceries, meal delivery, utilities, transportation, pest control and air filters.
Now, with a roughly $3 million R01 grant from the National Institute on Aging, George Mason University health economist Jeah Jung will lead a national study to evaluate whether these benefits reduce adverse health events and improve functional outcomes.
“Social needs related to health, such as food security, housing quality, reliable transportation, and social support, are increasingly recognized as important factors in the health of individuals,” said Jung, a professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy. Despite the widespread adoption of the new initiative to meet these needs, he said, “there is currently no information or data on how many people are using it, how they are using it, and whether it is actually having the intended results.”
As of 2025, 55% of Medicare beneficiaries, or 34.4 million Americans, were enrolled in Medicare Advantage, the private alternative to traditional Medicare. According to Jung’s data analysis, more than 30% of Medicare Advantage plans have adopted non-medical supplemental benefits by 2025. Meanwhile, she found that more than 90% of dual eligible special needs plans serving low-income beneficiaries enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid have adopted the benefits.
This is a really large-scale initiative by Medicare to address unmet societal needs and see if that helps maintain and improve beneficiary health outcomes as well. With an investment of this size, we want to see evidence of how it works and who it reaches, so the policy can be improved in the future.”
Jeah Jung, health economist, George Mason University
Using secure Medicare administrative data, Jung’s five-year project will examine whether the availability of nonmedical benefits is associated with changes in emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and whether patients can remain in their homes and communities rather than entering nursing homes. The study will also analyze who uses the new benefits and whether uptake varies by demographics such as race, ethnicity, gender, health risks and socioeconomic factors at the regional level.
The project will also include contributions from Emily Ihara, professor and chair of the Department of Social Work in the College of Public Health. Researchers from Oregon Health & Science University and Dartmouth College serve as co-investigators.
Basic foods
A $3 million National Institute on Aging grant will fund a national study to expand Medicare Advantage benefits to social assistance such as food assistance, transportation and other non-medical benefits.
Led by George Mason University health economist Jeah Jung, the five-year study will use Medicare administrative data to examine whether these benefits reduce emergency room visits, hospitalizations and nursing home admissions.
The findings will provide national data on who is using these benefits and whether this large-scale federal effort is working as intended.
