Program economics
What diet-sensitive disease costs in the US, from published sources. Every figure is quoted verbatim and labeled with its costing framework. No figure below is a projection of this program's savings; a pilot measures its own.
“On average people with diabetes incur annual medical expenditures of $19,736, of which approximately $12,022 is attributable to diabetes.”
People diagnosed with diabetes, on average, have medical expenditures 2.6 times higher than what would be expected without diabetes.
“The total estimated cost of diagnosed diabetes in the U.S. in 2022 is $412.9 billion, including $306.6 billion in direct medical costs and $106.3 billion in indirect costs attributable to diabetes.”
“Hypertension was associated with $2,759 (95% confidence interval [CI]: $2,039, $3,479) in health care expenditures and 10.3 (95% CI: 9.3, 11.3) health care events, including prescriptions filled, in 2019 per person.”
CDC, citing this study: annual costs associated with high blood pressure were an estimated $219 billion in the United States in 2019.
“The mean cost of an AMI event with no PCI or CABG was the least expensive at $21,898.”
Overall AMI mean $29,500 (95% CI $29,300 to $29,700); $31,522 with PCI; $71,788 with CABG. Cerebrovascular disease hospitalization: $22,300.
“The direct and indirect cost of stroke in the United States was $56.2 billion.”
Same source: mean direct-care expense per stroke patient estimated at $8,923 per year.
“Overall inflation-adjusted PPPY spending for Medicare FFS beneficiaries treated with in-center HD decreased from $115,442 in 2012 to $99,369 in 2022 (Figure 9.11a).”
USRDS 2025 ADR: total Medicare costs for ESRD were $55.3 billion in 2023. Slowing CKD progression is where nutrition matters most.
Produce prescriptions for adults with diabetes and food insecurity were projected to be cost-effective in all 50 states and net cost-saving in most.
A 2025 microsimulation in Diabetes Care modeled produce-prescription programs for adults with diabetes and food insecurity, projecting health gains and cost-effectiveness across all 50 states, with net cost savings in 43.
The tool already runs the measurement loop a payer conversation needs: baseline and follow-up A1c, blood pressure, weight, and adherence per patient, panel-level outcomes on the clinician dashboard, de-identified exports, and published effect sizes in the cohort projector with each trial cited.
Because the engine is deterministic and versioned, the intervention itself is exactly reproducible, which is what turns a pilot into publishable evidence.
Frameworks differ across these sources (attributable modeling, condition-coded totals, per-hospitalization costs) and years differ. Figures are US national estimates shown with their own methodology, not projections of savings from this program. A pilot measures its own outcomes.