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FQHCs just got a $100M shot at transforming Medicare care.
CMS Innovation Center dropped MAHA ELEVATE this week: Make America Healthy Again through Enhancing Lifestyle and Evaluating Value-based Approaches Through Evidence.
Here’s what makes this different:
Unlike traditional grant programs that fund incremental improvements, this 3-year cooperative agreement pushes FQHCs to integrate evidence-based lifestyle and functional medicine alongside standard care.
The focus? Medicare populations drowning in chronic disease.
Think about it: FQHCs serve 31 million patients, many with diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Traditional 15-minute visits aren’t cutting it.
Now CMS wants to fund whole-person approaches that actually address root causes.
📊 The opportunity:
• Up to 30 FQHCs selected
• 3-year funding cycles
• October 2026 launch
• Focus on Medicare beneficiaries
• Integration with existing care, not replacement
But here’s the catch: Letter of Intent due April 10. Full applications by May 15.
That’s less than 4 weeks for FQHCs to mobilize.
The requirements are steep:
• Strong Medicare enrollment
• Robust evaluation capacity
• Data infrastructure ready
• Cross-sector partnerships in place
This isn’t for every FQHC. It’s for those ready to prove lifestyle medicine can scale in safety-net settings.
The bigger question: Is this the beginning of CMS finally funding prevention at the scale we need?
Or just another pilot that won’t survive the next administration?
Either way, FQHCs who’ve been quietly building lifestyle programs now have their moment.
The clock is ticking.
♻️ Repost if FQHCs should lead the lifestyle medicine revolution
👉 Follow me, Jonathan Govette, for daily, real-time updates on healthcare technology and business news. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathangovette/
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Author:
CEO/Co-Founder @ Oatmeal Health | AI Lung Cancer Screening | Almost Became a Doctor | Engineer | Follow to Share What I’ve Learned Along the Way
I help patients get the care they need earlier, preventing late-stage cancer.
That’s been the throughline across three companies and almost 20 years in healthcare. At ReferralMD, we fixed broken referral networks so patients didn’t fall through the cracks. At Oatmeal Health, it’s lung cancer: building the diagnostic and screening infrastructure so the 85% of cases caught too late get caught early instead.
Today as CEO of Oatmeal Health, I lead a team embedding AI into radiology workflows to turn routine lung CT scans into reimbursable cancer risk assessments. We partner with FQHCs to reach underserved communities, and with health systems and payers to make early detection economically sustainable. Think HeartFlow or Cleerly, but for lungs.
Between companies, I advised at Techstars and Plug and Play, mentoring founders building in digital health. That experience shaped how I think about what separates companies that ship from companies that stall: distribution, reimbursement, and clinical trust, not just technology.
I’m a CancerX alumnus, a 3x healthcare founder, and someone who believes the biggest problems in cancer aren’t scientific. They’re operational.
We’re hiring mission-driven builders at Oatmeal Health. If you want to work on something that matters, reach out.
When I’m not working, I’m traveling, mentoring, and keeping up with one very energetic husky. 🐾
Substack – The Oatmeal Bite:
Millions of patients get less care because of who they are, where they live, or how they look. I’m fighting to change that. CEO @OatmealHealth, a startup built for the underserved. The Oatmeal Bite: intel for clinicians, investors, and advocates.
Jonathan Govette
CEO of Oatmeal Health
Substack:
https://oatmealhealthjonathangovette.substack.com/
