Integrated Supplemental Benefits for Health Plans: A Strategic Advantage for the Future

Health plans today are rethinking how to deliver high-impact services that support whole-person care. As more members seek simpler, more personalized healthcare experiences, integrated supplemental benefits have become essential—not as a value-add, but as a foundational part of care delivery.

By 2030, more than 73 million Americans will be over the age of 65, bringing with them increasingly complex health needs. At the same time, six in ten adults in the U.S. are living with at least one chronic condition, highlighting the growing demand for comprehensive, personalized support. While the vast majority of Medicare Advantage enrollees—over 99%—now have access to at least one supplemental benefit, the next frontier is integration. By connecting services like food, transportation, OTC products, vision, hearing, and wellness into a cohesive experience, health plans can significantly enhance member outcomes and satisfaction.

Supplemental benefits are proven tools for improving engagement, reducing barriers to care, and addressing key health needs. Yet, when delivered in isolation, their full impact often isn’t realized.

An analysis found that Medicare Advantage plans offering multiple, coordinated benefits—such as food, transportation, and fitness—had significantly higher member engagement and better Stars performance than those with siloed programs. These plans saw measurable improvements in adherence to preventive care, medication uptake, and chronic disease management.

From Supplemental to Essential: Driving Measurable Results

One powerful example of this in action is the growing emphasis on nutrition-related Food as Medicine strategies. Through NationsNutrition™, we’ve seen how integrating medically tailored meals and nutrition counseling into benefit design directly supports chronic condition management, weight loss goals, and member satisfaction. With culturally relevant meal options, home delivery, and alignment to GLP-1 medication strategies, food-based benefits are transforming from supplemental to essential. And because these services are tracked alongside other benefit data, health plans can see not only who receives nutrition support—but how it impacts engagement and outcomes across populations.

In parallel, we’re seeing how rewards and incentives—when integrated with supplemental benefits and supported by analytics—can connect the dots between member behavior and better health outcomes. By combining engagement data with purchase and usage patterns across OTC, transportation, and food, health plans gain real-time insight into member habits. This intelligence can then be used to serve more personalized offers, influence healthy actions, and support benefit access at the point of sale—whether that’s retail, pharmacy, or digital touchpoints. It’s not just engagement—it’s measurable activation.

An integrated supplemental benefits model delivers value across four key areas:

• Improved Outcomes: Aligning benefits with care goals strengthens quality metrics and supports population health
• Operational Efficiency: Reducing vendor fragmentation streamlines administration and lowers overhead
• Data-Driven Performance: Centralized analytics and reporting create better visibility into utilization, ROI, and unmet needs
• Health Equity: Integrated models allow for personalized, accessible benefit delivery—regardless of income or geography

Smarter Systems, Stronger Outcomes

The most agile health plans are treating integration as infrastructure—not just a digital upgrade, but a strategic approach to care. They’re embedding supplemental benefits into broader workflows, leveraging real-time adjudication, and shifting from vendor point solutions to connected ecosystems that allow for seamless benefit activation.

A recent McKinsey report found that plans using integrated delivery for non-medical benefits saw a 10–15% reduction in total cost of care in select high-risk populations. These outcomes were driven by benefits that mitigated avoidable utilization—like access to healthy food, preventive OTCs, and transportation to care. Similarly, a Commonwealth Fund study found that members with access to bundled supplemental benefits were twice as likely to complete recommended preventive screenings. This underscores the power of integration—not just in delivering services, but in driving better decisions and stronger engagement.

Building the Future of Member-Centered Care

Supplemental benefits have evolved from simple access tools to powerful drivers of health outcomes. With the right technology, analytics, and delivery models, health plans can now directly connect benefits to key indicators like wellness visit adherence, medication compliance, diet quality, and overall member engagement.

As expectations grow for personalization, convenience, and measurable results, integration is quickly becoming a strategic imperative for health plans. Those that align supplemental benefits with care goals, member behavior, and digital infrastructure are best positioned to adapt, scale, and lead.

By making benefits smarter, simpler, and more connected, health plans can build systems that work better—for members, providers, and the broader healthcare ecosystem.