Despite spending more than $4.9 trillion on health care, the U.S. performs worse than other developed countries in life expectancy, infant mortality, and diabetes. Innovative health financing is about using traditional health care dollars in new and different ways to pay for better health outcomes. Instead of only covering doctor visits and medicine, innovative health financing pays for things outside the doctor’s office that help people stay healthy. These approaches include alternative payment models, pay-for-success programs, and collaborative work that supports interventions to address underlying factors of poor health like food insecurity, safe places for physical activity, and more.

EHF works to shift the health sector’s approach by supporting community clinics, collaboratives, and nonprofits in exploring new ways to pay for health, not just health care. Through partnerships with government agencies, Medicaid managed care organizations, philanthropies, and others, EHF supports new and different ways of paying for improved health outcomes. EHF’s goal is to ensure this work is sustained through innovative funding models that extend beyond EHF and other traditional philanthropic sources.