MAHA ELEVATE (Make America Healthy Again: Enhancing Lifestyle and Evaluating Value-based Approaches Through Evidence) Model

MAHA ELEVATE Model Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)

CMS will release a NOFO in early 2026 for the first cohort.

The Make America Healthy Again: Enhancing Lifestyle and Evaluating Value-based Approaches Through Evidence (MAHA ELEVATE) Model is part of the Administration’s bold plan to reform America’s health systems to address the chronic disease epidemic. The model will provide approximately $100 million to fund 3-year cooperative agreements for up to 30 proposals that promote health and prevention for Original Medicare beneficiaries. The proposals will utilize evidence-based, whole-person care approaches — including functional or lifestyle medicine interventions — currently not covered by Original Medicare. These approaches are intended to support, not replace, the medical care received by people with Medicare. MAHA ELEVATE will also gather and evaluate new data on cost and quality to inform future interventions promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors and ultimately reduce spending in Original Medicare. 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.

Key Points
Problem: Whole-person functional or lifestyle medicine interventions, including those focused on nutrition and physical activity, may slow or prevent chronic disease; however, more evidence is needed to understand which interventions work best for older populations and can be applied across Original Medicare to promote healthy lifestyles. Solution: The MAHA ELEVATE Model will evaluate up to 30 evidence-based proposals with proven success to determine which may best support conventional care and suit the health promotion and disease prevention needs of people with Original Medicare. Outcomes: Interventions tested in MAHA ELEVATE will inform future Original Medicare coverage determinations or potential future CMS Innovation Center models designed to improve the health of beneficiaries and cut health care costs. Strategy: By testing whole-person approaches to care, MAHA ELEVATE aims to help transform the U.S. health care system to one that proactively addresses the root causes of chronic disease rather than reactively addressing symptoms.

Key Points

Problem: Whole-person functional or lifestyle medicine interventions, including those focused on nutrition and physical activity, may slow or prevent chronic disease; however, more evidence is needed to understand which interventions work best for older populations and can be applied across Original Medicare to promote healthy lifestyles.
Solution: The MAHA ELEVATE Model will evaluate up to 30 evidence-based proposals with proven success to determine which may best support conventional care and suit the health promotion and disease prevention needs of people with Original Medicare.
Outcomes: Interventions tested in MAHA ELEVATE will inform future Original Medicare coverage determinations or potential future CMS Innovation Center models designed to improve the health of beneficiaries and cut health care costs.
Strategy: By testing whole-person approaches to care, MAHA ELEVATE aims to help transform the U.S. health care system to one that proactively addresses the root causes of chronic disease rather than reactively addressing symptoms.

Model Details

MAHA ELEVATE will evaluate impacts on cost and quality of evidence-based whole-person care, including functional or lifestyle medicine interventions, in an Original Medicare population.

Background

In 2022, approximately 45% of people with Medicare had four or more chronic conditions, and people with chronic conditions accounted for nearly 90% of total health care spending. The American health system primarily focuses on treating the symptoms of these conditions and managing diseases.

Through this model, CMS aims to address the core lifestyle choices and human behaviors that are associated with the prevention of chronic disease. Preventive measures begin with empowering people to build healthy practices they can sustain outside of clinicians’ offices to help meet their health goals. Over time, this approach is expected to lead to a healthier population and to lower health care costs.

Goals

MAHA Elevate aims to:

Establish in Original Medicare a novel U.S. evidence base — featuring cost and quality data — on the effectiveness of whole-person functional or lifestyle medicine approaches to care, including psychological, nutritional and physical interventions.
Empower patients to take control of their health through lifestyle changes.
Prevent illness and promote wellness through novel approaches to supporting people in behavior changes aimed at improving health or slowing and/or reversing disease progression.

Innovation

MAHA ELEVATE is the first Innovation Center model to focus on proactive, holistic, patient-centered functional or lifestyle medicine approaches to support conventional care. It combines psychological, nutritional, and physical interventions along with self-care strategies to address the whole person rather than individual disease, to help promote wellness and prevent illness. Critical areas of focus include nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management, harmful substance avoidance, and social connection.

Design

CMS will fund up to 30 cooperative agreements through MAHA ELEVATE, with a total budget of approximately $100 million over a 3-year performance period to collect quality and cost data on whole-person functional or lifestyle medicine interventions, as a support to — not in lieu of — conventional medicine. Proposals should include services not already covered by Original Medicare but with documented evidence of the intervention’s efficacy. The cooperative agreements will be awarded to organizations with experience 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.

Cooperative agreements will be awarded in two rounds for two separate cohorts — one starting in 2026 and the second in 2027.

Recipient Information

Frequently Asked Questions

How will CMS evaluate proposal submissions?

Proposals should include whole-person care, including functional or lifestyle services not already covered by Original Medicare but with documented scientific evidence of the intervention’s safety, efficacy and cost impact for the target population. Each proposal must include a nutrition or physical activity component. Applicants should also provide data showing outcomes from their own program implementation prior to applying. Applicants must demonstrate past experience with data collection or the ability to accurately collect and report all required data from beneficiary enrollees in a timely manner, with appropriate data protections in place for beneficiaries and an understanding of how to store and analyze data with model goals in mind.

Can organizations submit multiple applications?

Yes. While CMS aims to fund a wide range of applicants for comprehensive testing, individual organizations may submit multiple proposals and receive multiple awards; however, each proposed intervention must be substantially distinct. CMS may ask single applicant organizations to combine related proposals into a single, comprehensive proposal.

Will receiving services from a MAHA ELEVATE recipient change Original Medicare coverage or costs?
No, receiving functional or lifestyle medicine services from MAHA ELEVATE recipients does not change Medicare benefits, coverage or rights. Patients keep all standard Medicare protections and can continue to see any Original Medicare provider. Further, these interventions are designed to complement or augment, but not replace, traditional medical care.

How does MAHA ELEVATE support patient safety?

MAHA ELEVATE embeds strong safeguards to support beneficiary safety and choice, beginning with the application process. Proposals including interventions with evidence of, or substantial risk of, harm will be excluded. CMS will monitor recipient programs for patient safety concerns and may disenroll recipients who fail to meet quality or safety standards. Additional details regarding patient safety requirements will be available in the Notice of Funding Opportunity.

How will CMS protect my personal health information?
MAHA ELEVATE recipients must comply with all Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy and security requirements. CMS follows strict federal standards to protect beneficiary information used for care coordination, reporting, and evaluation.

What can the cooperative agreement funding be used for?

MAHA ELEVATE cooperative agreement funding can be used to cover whole-person care services, including functional or lifestyle medicine, that Original Medicare doesn’t cover. It can only be used for Original Medicare patients. It can also be used to cover costs for administration and data collection and reporting. It cannot be used to cover food or for services that can be billed to Original Medicare. Additional details about allowable and unallowable costs will be provided in the Notice of Funding Opportunity.

Additional Information

For additional information and updates specifically about the MAHA ELEVATE Model, please subscribe to the MAHA ELEVATE listserv.
Contact the MAHA ELEVATE team at mahaelevate@cms.hhs.gov.
For CMS Innovation Center updates, subscribe to the CMS Innovation Center listserv.

Visit our Innovation Model webpage for a list of all CMS Innovation Center model tests.

MAHA ELEVATE (Make America Healthy Again: Enhancing Lifestyle and Evaluating Value-based Approaches Through Evidence) Model

Model Details

Recipient Information

Frequently Asked Questions

Additional Information

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Model Summary