Stakeholder Support for Lifestyle Medicine Shared Medical Appointments

Presentation Summary: This session explores Shared Medical Appointments (SMAs) as a high-impact, team-based care delivery model that advances the goals of lifestyle medicine while improving access, equity, efficiency, and outcomes across healthcare systems. SMAs are highlighted as a bridge from fee-for-service to value-based care, demonstrating benefits such as increased patient access, enhanced social and behavioral empowerment, improved recognition of lifestyle change through outcome reporting, operational efficiencies, and reduced provider burnout. However, successful implementation requires intentional organizational alignment, early engagement of senior leadership, and sustained collaboration across financial, compliance, coding, clinical, and community stakeholders.

The session will also address the distinctive design and culture of SMAs, emphasizing the shift from didactic teaching to Socratic, patient-centered engagement supported by coaching and motivational interviewing. This approach fosters peer-supported learning, psychological safety, and shared accountability, enabling patients to build self-efficacy and sustain meaningful behavior change. Grounded in frameworks such as the Patient Health Engagement (PHE) model, SMAs create space for vulnerability, small wins, and community connection—key drivers of autonomy and long-term health behavior change. Finally, participants will be guided through a step-by-step roadmap for building and scaling an SMA program, with attention to evaluation metrics aligned with the Quintuple Aim, including patient experience, population health, provider well-being, equitable access, and cost effectiveness.