Aligning Incentives to Provide Better Outcomes
Motivation is what drives actions. This statement stands true in the healthcare industry as well. Be it the healthcare users or providers, incentives have always played a big role in motivating people towards desired actions. Most businesses are built based on how people react to the incentives provided to them.
An example of incentive-driven behavior can be seen in the study led by Dr. Kevin Volpp. Dr. Volpp’s work focuses on developing and testing insights and ideas from behavioral economics into improving patient health behavior and affecting provider performance. In his study, Dr. Vlopp was able to show that smoking cessation rates can be tripled if financial incentives were given. It is, therefore, now a proven fact that incentives can help improve health conditions if aligned properly.
Incentives are provided using various methods in the healthcare industry. They may include monetary as well as non-monetary incentives and can be applied to consumers, individual providers or institutions. Both these type of incentives target specific needs of the people involved, for example, monetary incentives cater to the need for financial stability and security in people and non-monetary ones cater to the recreational needs.
Monetary Incentives
Monetary incentives, as the term suggests, can be calculated in terms of money. They include benefits like bonuses, commissions, extra pay, lower premiums on insurance etc. Health service providers can profit financially by providing better services and users can stay healthier by reacting to such incentives. This strategy works both ways as it is a win-win situation for both the users as well as the providers. People get paid to stay fit and providers are financially benefited by the increase in overall sales of their products services.
Non-Monetary Incentives
Money is not the only motivator, sometimes, non-monetary incentives can also help achieve the desired outcomes. These incentives include things like coupons, vacations, free check-ups etc. When given such options, people tend to want to work towards these incentives, and the resulting output is generally for the better. An example of such incentive-driven behavior can be seen in this example- giving people 3 days of free yoga classes might make them try it out and later take it up. In this way not only does it help keep the user motivated to stay healthy, but also helps increase the trials of the service provider.
Aligning incentives in the right way can provide a very positive outcome and if done well, all the parties in question can be mutually benefited. Understanding the behavior of all the participants involved is necessary. Otherwise, the incentives provided will remain one-sided and would lead to a collapse of the entire incentive system. Usage of Data analytics and meticulous research can lead organizations towards the highest possible outcomes that benefit everyone. The NHCT ecosystem is a very good example of the right alignment of incentives in the healthcare industry.
NHCT and healthcare incentives
NHCT is a total health management platform. It follows the principle of preventive care rather than reactive care and aims at providing total health: which includes mental health, physical health, diet, and fitness. Thus the entire outlook of the platform is to approach healthcare in a holistic fashion.
The NHCT ecosystem is built on the concept of incentives. It aims at benefitting all the players in its ecosystem — the users, the payers, and the providers. The NHCT app monitors and stores all the health statistics entered by the user and provides AI based recommendations based on that. Apart from this, the entire ecosystem works on a three-tier token model — the three tokens being WAWA, WARMA, and NHCT. The tokens can be earned by participating in varying levels of activities that boost one’s health such as a daily jog, yoga sessions etc. Even uploading a medical report is rewarded with tokens. These tokens can then be spent on doctor checkups, gym membership, pharmacies etc.
Thus the incentives provided not only help keep people healthy and fit overall but also helps providers by reducing claims due to lower instances of health issues. In the long run, it also benefits payers as they have to pay lower premiums owing to a healthy workforce. The incentive structure truly makes it a win-win situation for all.
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