Integrating lifestyle medicine into applications for the new $50 billion Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Rural Health Transformation Program offers a powerful framework to improve population health, boost workforce efficiency, and reduce healthcare costs in rural communities.
By Jessica Jolly | ACLM Senior Director of Practice Advancement
October 9, 2025
Rural America is facing big health challenges. Higher rates of preventable chronic diseases—like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity—are taking a heavy toll on communities already stretched thin by healthcare workforce shortages and dwindling access to care. These conditions not only shorten lives but also strain local economies and healthcare systems. Traditional acute-care models, focused on treating disease after it appears, simply aren’t enough to reverse these trends.
But a transformation is possible—one that starts by addressing the root causes of disease.
A new model for rural health
Lifestyle medicine offers a sustainable, evidence-based framework to help rural communities thrive. By treating, reversing, and preventing chronic illness through changes in daily habits—optimal nutrition, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, connectedness, and avoidance of risky substances—lifestyle medicine empowers patients and clinicians alike to create lasting change.
Integrating lifestyle medicine into applications for the recently enacted Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) overview provides a roadmap for improving population health, enhancing workforce efficiency, and driving down costs—all while aligning with national priorities such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center’s value-based care goals and the Healthy People 2030 objectives.
Proven benefits with measurable impact
Evidence shows that lifestyle medicine delivers results that go far beyond symptom management:
- Improved health outcomes: Lifestyle medicine interventions lead to measurable improvements in hypertension, heart disease, mental health, and cognitive function, while enabling the remission of type 2 diabetes.
- Cost savings: Studies project significant cost savings and a high potential return on investment from lifestyle interventions.
- Workforce efficiency: Team-based care and shared medical appointments expand clinical capacity, reduce burnout, and improve patient engagement.
Building the framework: Implementation in action
Transforming rural health through lifestyle medicine requires collaboration across clinical, community, and policy sectors. Here’s how that transformation can take shape:
- Clinical integration – Train and certify rural clinicians in lifestyle medicine. Standardize and scale high-value lifestyle medicine interventions within existing practice models.
- Community partnerships – Work with extension offices, YMCAs, community colleges, and food hubs to increase access to healthy foods, safe recreation, and social support networks.
- Payment and incentive models – Align Medicaid, Medicare, and value-based programs with outcomes like disease remission, improved biomarkers, and medication deprescribing.
- Rural health focus – Prioritize high-need populations and address upstream drivers of health through partnerships with local organizations and faith-based coalitions.
When implemented together, these strategies can transform both health outcomes and community well-being—creating a ripple effect that extends far beyond the clinic.
Ready-to-implement solutions from ACLM
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) offers turnkey, scalable healthcare workforce development resources and nutrition-related CME to help states incorporate plug-and-play solutions that meet RHTP criteria. Adopting a lifestyle medicine framework in rural health transformation improves outcomes, lowers costs, and strengthens community health by addressing root causes through nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress, substance avoidance, and connectedness.
This framework aligns with value-based care and sustainability goals while benefiting all stakeholders: healthier populations, reduced costs, more fulfilled clinicians, stronger public health partnerships, and payer savings. By equipping healthcare professionals with evidence-based tools and training, ACLM can help states and organizations shift rural care from reactive treatment to sustainable, whole-community well-being.
A call to action for governors and policymakers
State leadership plays a critical role in scaling this transformation. Governors can:
- Direct health agencies to integrate lifestyle medicine into RHTP designs.
- Partner with ACLM to train clinicians and align with best practices.
- Incentivize lifestyle medicine -based models through Medicaid waivers and value-based innovation models.
- Track success through clinical outcomes, cost savings, and community health indicators.
The promise of a healthier rural America
Lifestyle medicine is not a theoretical solution—it’s a proven, high-value strategy to restore health and hope across rural America. By focusing on prevention, reversing chronic disease, and strengthening local systems of care, states can build a future where rural communities are not left behind but lead the way in sustainable, whole-person health.
Evidence for each claim
Claim: Lifestyle medicine interventions lead to measurable improvements in hypertension, heart disease, mental health, and cognitive function, while enabling the remission of type 2 diabetes.
Supporting studies/reviews:
Lifestyle Interventions for Treatment and Remission of Type 2 Diabetes and Prediabetes in Adults: A Clinical Practice Guideline. American College of Lifestyle Medicine. This guideline summarizes RCTs & systematic reviews showing lifestyle interventions can prevent, treat, and in some cases achieve remission of type 2 diabetes. (PubMed)
Multifactorial lifestyle interventions in the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus – a systematic review (7,703 participants) which found lifestyle programs (diet, exercise, stress management) improve both prevention and management in CHD and T2D. (PubMed)
Lifestyle modification programmes for coronary heart disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis (11,085 randomized patients) showed reductions in all-cause mortality, cardiac mortality, readmissions, and non-fatal reinfarctions. (PubMed) • Interventions involving a major dietary component improve cognitive function in cognitively healthy adults: meta-analysis (15 trials, ~6,480 participants) showing improvements in global cognition, executive function, and processing speed. (PubMed)
The Effect of Lifestyle Interventions on Anxiety, Depression and Stress: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (96 RCTs) showing lifestyle interventions reduce depression, anxiety and stress. (MDPI)
Claim: Studies project significant cost savings and a high potential return on investment from lifestyle interventions.
Supporting studies/reviews:
Modeled Health and Economic Impact of Team-Based Care for Hypertension (Dehmer et al.): projected that adopting team-based care for uncontrolled hypertension could save more in medical costs than it costs over 10 years, with Medicare seeing net savings of ~$5.8 billion. (PubMed)
Cost-effectiveness of Diabetes Prevention Interventions Targeting High-risk Individuals and Whole Populations: A Systematic Review (Diabetes Care) – finds many preventative lifestyle interventions for type 2 diabetes are highly cost-effective, with cost per QALY well under usual thresholds. (Diabetes Journals)
From the American College of Lifestyle Medicine blog summarizing the DiRECT Trial, etc., showing that lifestyle interventions had cost savings per participant vs standard care, fewer medications, and long-term cost savings. (American College of Lifestyle Medicine)
Community Health Worker intervention among low-income Hispanic adults with T2D: cost-effectiveness with long term projections of QALYs and costs. (CDC)
Claim: Team-based care and shared medical appointments expand clinical capacity, reduce burnout, and improve patient engagement.
Supporting studies/reviews:
Elements of Team-Based Care in a Patient-Centered Medical Home Are Associated with Lower Burnout Among VA Primary Care Employees. This study of ~4,539 VA primary care staff shows that fully staffed teams, participatory decision-making, and working at top of competency are associated with lower burnout. (PMC)
The Association of Team-Specific Workload and Staffing with Odds of Burnout Among VA Primary Care Team Members – shows strong associations between better team staffing, lower turnover, and lower burnout. (PubMed)
Patients, clinicians benefit from team-based care model, study finds (Stanford clinic): introducing team-based care (with advanced practice clinicians, medical assistants) reduced cost per visit and initially reduced burnout, improved patient engagement. (Stanford Medicine)
Whole Health Revolution: Value-Based Care + Lifestyle Medicine (2024) discusses lifespan of value-based payment, shared medical appointments, team-based care in primary care settings reducing burnout and improving patient engagement. (PMC)
Turn vision into measurable impact
Contact us to learn more about how to partner with ACLM to deliver lifestyle medicine solutions that drive better health, lower costs, and strengthen local healthcare systems in rural America.
About the author
Jessica Jolly is the Senior Director of Practice Advancement for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM). She has nearly 20 years of experience in healthcare operations and leadership. Jessica is passionate about advancing the practice and field of lifestyle medicine and achieving health equity.