involved with their healthcare in the past year after being diagnosed with a health issue. Another big motivating factor was the influence of family and friends (11.5 percent) in encouraging them to take action.
In contrast, 38.1 percent of survey respondents stated that they have not become any more concerned or involved in their health in the last year. And 6.4 percent have even become less concerned or involved in the last 12 months, which suggests that the consumer engagement message is not always being received (and no doubt a lot more Triple Baconators are being consumed). Among those people, 23.8 percent stated they were too busy to think about their health, and another 23.8 percent said they were sick and tired of hearing about healthcare issues in the media.
Being sick of hearing about healthcare has to be one of the greater ironies I can think of. Nothing like a little petulant denial to bring sunshine to your world.
Because this is America and cash is king, we were not entirely surprised to find in the survey results that one of the most effective ways to engage consumers in their health and to keep them engaged is through financial incentives. It is human nature for people to respond positively to rewards and incentives, and these incentives need to become more prevalent, more consistent, and more personalized in the healthcare industry if they are to have a long‐term impact. This fact was clearly reflected in the study, with nearly two-thirds (65.4 percent) of respondents saying that health care insurers should reduce the premiums of people who take actions to improve their health. Additionally, half (49.9 percent) of the respondents say employers should pay an incentive to employees who take steps to improve their health, like beginning an exercise program. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver,” but American consumers clearly don’t distinguish between the two.
What is clear is that efforts to combine financial incentives with health-improving activities and programs are key to building a healthier nation. Unfortunately, there is not enough time in the TV programming day to enroll every single American in The Biggest Loser, so we have to look at other approaches such as value-based insurance programs.
SeeChange Health is a company that has demonstrated how the value-based model can work. By using financial incentives and consumer education to engage members in undertaking health-improving behaviors, this San Francisco, CA-based insurer has demonstrated significant cost and quality results. Members who agree to get regular check-ups, undertake basic biometric tests each year and follow basic protocols to effectively manage chronic illnesses benefit by receiving reduced insurance premiums, and lower co-payments and deductibles that amount to an average of more than $500/year in a member’s pocket. The results have been profound. In a population of 500,000 covered members, SeeChange saw a reduction of over 19 percent in diabetes-related costs over a two-year period as a result of their consumer engagement programs.
I have written much about these new-fangled health insurance products, which tightly integrate health incentives with benefit design to create changes in consumer engagement in healthy behaviors. You can see a prior post about this topic on my Venture Valkyrie blog. But you can also read about this topic and see the rest of the survey results and analysis in the Psilos Outlook on Healthcare Economics & Innovation.
