title: Patient-centered financial incentives for health: Can employers get change for their dollars?
abstract: While employer-sponsored financial incentives for healthy behaviors have demonstrated the potential to promote short-term employee behavior change, the effectiveness of such incentives in promoting long-term health behavior change has often been disappointing. This paucity of sustained change could be explained by the many factors that shape employees' health behaviors, only some of which may be influenced by incentives. We discuss how employer-sponsored incentives for healthy behaviors could become more patient-centered, and thus perhaps more effective, by integrating insights from self-determination theory and health behavior theories, targeting employees' capacity for change, and using tailoring.
authors.affiliation: VA Center for Clinical Management Research, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Ann Arbor, MI 48113-0170, United States; Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, United States; Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, University of Michigan, 2800 Plymouth Road, Building 16, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2800, United States. Electronic address: jkullgre@med.umich.edu.
authors.forename: Jeffrey T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Kullgren
authors.affiliation: Departments of Medicine and Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, 500 Joseph C. Wilson Blvd. Box 270266, Rochester, NY 14611, United States.
authors.forename: Geoffrey C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, United States; Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, University of Michigan, 2800 Plymouth Road, Building 16, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2800, United States.
authors.forename: Lawrence C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: An
keywords: Behavioral economics; Health behaviors; Health promotion; Incentives; Workplace wellness