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  • August 2020
  • Article
  • Health Services Research

Do Physician Incentives Increase Patient Medication Adherence?

By: Edward Kong, John Beshears, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, Kevin Volpp, George Loewenstein, Jonathan Kolstad and James J. Choi
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Abstract

We conducted a randomized experiment (911 primary care practices and 8,935 nonadherent patients) to test the effect of paying physicians for increasing patient medication adherence in three drug classes: diabetes medication, antihypertensives, and statins. We measured patients’ medication adherence for 18 (6) months before (after) the intervention. We found no evidence that physician incentives increased adherence in any drug class. Our results rule out increases in the proportion of days covered by medication larger than 4.2 percentage points.

Keywords

Health Economics; Medication Adherence; Physician Payment Incentives; Primary Care; Quality Improvement; Health Care and Treatment; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior

Citation

Kong, Edward, John Beshears, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, Kevin Volpp, George Loewenstein, Jonathan Kolstad, and James J. Choi. "Do Physician Incentives Increase Patient Medication Adherence?" Health Services Research 55, no. 4 (August 2020): 503–511.

About The Author

John Beshears

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
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