Incentives to Shape Health Behaviors: How Can We Make Them More Person-Centered?

Abstract

Employers and health plans increasingly offer incentives to individuals to help shape their health behaviors including utilization of recommended care. However, despite the focus on patient-centered health care in the broader field, incentives are often one-size-fits-all. “Person-centered incentives” take into account individual differences that are often unobservable to those managing incentives programs and incorporate choice into the incentives structure. The authors propose multiple dimensions of person-centered incentives to consider and suggest a research agenda to determine their impact. Person-centered incentives may constitute a valuable addition to the toolbox of ways to encourage individuals to improve their health behaviors.

KEYWORDS:

• health care
• incentives
• person-centered