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Transforming Healthcare with New Codes: Food as Medicine Interventions in Clinical Practice

Monday, October 13, 2025

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Music City Center, Davidson Ballroom A

Proficiency: Intermediate knowledge/experience

Tracks: Medical Nutrition Therapy, Policy & Advocacy

CPE: 1.0

Description

Healthcare infrastructure has not kept up with the pace of innovation in addressing social drivers of health. More than a dozen states are paying for food to help prevent, reverse and treat chronic conditions through Medicaid. Yet, these services are not documented in a patient’s healthcare record like any other healthcare service. This gap means a patient’s story isn’t being accurately told, data on these food-based interventions isn’t complete, and payment for providers isn’t being efficiently processed.

Enter Coding4Food, an initiative aimed at creating new HCPCS codes to integrate a spectrum of Food as Medicine interventions into healthcare. Over the course of 2024 and 2025, subject matter experts including RDNs, program implementors, and payers from across the country came together to define different Food as Medicine interventions and submit applications for new codes to CMS. Join project leaders for updates on progress, learn how these codes will affect clinical practice, and open doors for payment for critical innovations.

Learning Objectives

  • Explain the gaps in coding infrastructure related to Food as Medicine interventions and the negative outcomes and missed opportunities associated with these gaps.
  • Demonstrate how Food as Medicine interventions can be integrated across RDNs practice.
  • Identify research and advocacy opportunities associated with more accessible and accurate data enabled by improved medical coding.

Performance Indicators

  • 6.2.3 Evaluates and improves workflow and resource needs management for clinical information system implementation, maintenance and upgrades.
  • 2.4.2 Recognizes the impact of food security defined as factors affecting applicable population and access to a sufficient quantity of safe, healthful food and water, as well as food/nutrition-related supplies.
  • 7.1.1 Identifies gaps in evidence to determine research priorities.

Speakers

  • Katie Ettman photo

    Katie Ettman

    Deputy Director, Fullwell

    Katie Ettman is a lifelong advocate. In her role as the Deputy Director at Fullwell, she works to build a healthy, just, and sustainable food system through local, state and national level policy change. Her primary focus is transitioning food-based interventions from philanthropically funded and pilot services to permanent Medi-Cal benefits. Katie earned her Master’s of Public Administration from The University of Colorado Denver and a Bachelor’s degree in Public Communication and Community and International Development from The University of Vermont.
  • Nikki Kmicinski photo

    Nikki Kmicinski

    Chief Executive Officer, Western New York Integrated Care Collaborative, Inc.

    Nikki Kmicinski, MS, RD, CDN is the Chief Executive Officer for Western New York Integrated Care Collaborative (Integrated Care). Integrated Care is recognized nationally by the US Administration for Community Living (ACL) as a Community Care Hub for a regional Social Care Network of over 160 local social care agencies or community-based organizations. Under Nikki’s leadership, Integrated Care was awarded The John A. Hartford 2023 Business Innovation Award from USAging for their network development and contracts with health plans; was featured in the White House’s U.S. Playbook to Address Social Determinants of Health, Nov. 2023; and is designated as one of 9 regional Social Care Networks in New York State’s unprecedented Medicaid 1115 Demonstration Project. Nikki received the Excellence in Health Care Award from Buffalo Business First in May 2025. Nikki is a Registered Dietitian with a Master of Science degree in Service Management from Rochester Institute of Technology and sits on numerous national, state-wide and regional forums, including the Partnership to Align Social Care and Coding4Food, where policy regarding the integration of social care with clinical care is being discussed.

Moderator

  • Constantina Papoutsakis photo

    Constantina Papoutsakis

    Senior Director, Data Science Center, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

    Constantina (Tina) Papoutsakis, PhD, RD is Senior Director, Nutrition and Dietetics Data Science Center of the Academy (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) that conducts nutrition care registry studies and other Academy research initiatives, including ANDHII (the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics health Informatics Infrastructure; a Nutrition Care Process (NCP) outcomes focused platform capable of big data aggregation). Dr. Papoutsakis chairs the SNOMED CT Clinical Reference Group on nutrition and dietetics and has overseen the development and integration of NCP Terminology (NCPT) in SNOMED CT. She is a member of the Coding4Food Advisory Committee that will develop ‘food is medicine’ HCPCS codes in the next 2 years. She chaired the Professional Practice Committee of EFAD (European Federation of Associations of Dietitians) and was a member of EFAD’s Executive Committee until November 2021. Dr. Papoutsakis has chaired the NCP International Workgroup of the Academy. She has led initiatives to monitor best practices among dietitians internationally with emphasis on the Nutrition Care Process and Terminology (NCP/T). Dr. Papoutsakis has lectured and organized workshops for health professionals and university students in several countries in Europe, Asia, and the US. She has taught university courses, worked as a clinical dietitian, served as a clinical and managerial expert of NIH funded cancer randomized clinical trials, and published widely on nutrition/dietetics topics. The emphasis of her research has been on the impact of nutrition in chronic disease outcomes. Seminal publications include updates of the NCP Model, NCP Terminology and validation of the NCP audit tool, the NCP-QUEST.

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