Your Data Partner for MAHA ELEVATE

MAHA ELEVATE (Make America Healthy Again: Enhancing Lifestyle and Evaluating Value-based Approaches Through Evidence) is a CMS Innovation Center cooperative agreement program providing approximately $100 million in funding for up to 30 organizations across two cohorts.

Each award averages $3.3 million over a 3-year performance period to deliver evidence-based lifestyle and functional medicine interventions to Original Medicare beneficiaries. The model tests whether whole-person care approaches not currently covered by Medicare can improve health outcomes and reduce costs.

Eligible applicants include private practices, health systems, accountable care organizations (ACOs), academic organizations, community-based groups, senior living communities, and state and local governments.

Applicants must demonstrate experience delivering the proposed interventions, provide evidence the interventions are safe and effective for the target population (supported by peer-reviewed literature), and show the ability to collect and report data accurately and in a timely manner with appropriate beneficiary safeguards.

CMS requires regular beneficiary-level reporting across four main categories:

Clinical outcomes — biometrics and health status indicators relevant to the intervention (BMI, A1c, blood pressure, lipids, depression screening scores, etc.). Service utilization and process measures — encounter-level tracking of intervention delivery and beneficiary engagement. Enrollment numbers — recruitment against CMS-set targets, with a significant portion of funding tied to meeting these targets. Cost impact data — healthcare utilization and cost tracking alongside clinical outcomes.

Awardees must also implement a randomized study design or include a valid comparison group. The specific measure set is co-designed with CMS after award, not fixed in the NOFO.

Yes. CMS explicitly allows MAHA ELEVATE cooperative agreement funds to cover administrative costs, data collection and reporting, and infrastructure as appropriate. Data partner services like those provided by ACO Health Solutions are an allowable budget line item.

Funds cannot be used to provide services already covered by Original Medicare (those should be paid through normal Medicare billing), or to cover the direct cost of food (though nutrition education and counseling are allowable).

A Qualified Registry is not strictly required, but CMS evaluates applicants on data collection capability. Partnering with a CMS Qualified Registry significantly strengthens applications because it demonstrates immediate readiness to meet CMS reporting requirements without building data infrastructure from scratch.

ACO Health Solutions is both a CMS Qualified Registry and a Clinical Data Registry, with HITRUST e1 certified infrastructure and an established track record of beneficiary-level CMS reporting for 50+ MSSP ACOs.

CMS has not yet released the official Cohort 2 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). Based on the announced timeline, Cohort 2 applications are expected in 2027, with a separate Letter of Intent and full application cycle.

Organizations considering Cohort 2 should begin planning now. Competitive applications typically require 6 to 12 months of preparation, including documenting prior program outcomes, lining up clinical and data partners, and developing the evaluation design.

Competitive applications demonstrate prior experience delivering the proposed intervention, scientific evidence supporting efficacy in the target population, a rigorous evaluation design with randomization or valid comparison group, recruitment capacity for typically 1,000+ Medicare FFS beneficiaries, and proven data collection infrastructure with HIPAA-compliant safeguards.

Every proposal must include a nutrition or physical activity component. Three of the 30 awards are reserved for programs focused on dementia and cognitive decline.

MAHA ELEVATE cooperative agreements have a 3-year performance period. Cohort 1 begins September 1, 2026. Cohort 2 is expected to begin in 2027.

Awardees deliver interventions, collect data, and submit reports to CMS throughout the entire 3-year period. The model is designed so successful interventions could inform future Medicare coverage decisions, similar to the pathway established by the Diabetes Prevention Program.

MAHA ELEVATE is a cooperative agreement (grant) that funds evidence-generation for whole-person lifestyle and functional medicine interventions through rigorous evaluation. The ACCESS Model is an outcome-aligned payment program that reimburses providers for technology-enabled chronic care services.

ACCESS uses claims-based payments tied to outcomes; MAHA ELEVATE uses up-front cooperative agreement funding tied to enrollment and reporting milestones. The two models can complement each other for organizations serving Medicare FFS populations with chronic disease.

Awardees may target one or more chronic conditions with evidence-based functional or lifestyle medicine interventions. Common focus areas include diabetes, hypertension, heart failure, obesity, chronic kidney disease, musculoskeletal pain, and behavioral health conditions like depression and anxiety.

All proposals must include a nutrition or physical activity component. Other allowable focus areas include stress management, sleep, avoidance of harmful substances, and social connection. Three awards are reserved for programs focused on dementia and cognitive decline.