Financial incentives for cholesterol management may help contain cost
A program that offered financial incentives to both patients and their physicians to control low-density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol could be a cost-effective intervention for patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study showed that the shared incentive program provided reasonable value even when accounting for additional costs, such as electronic pill bottles to monitor drug adherence, more frequent cholesterol measurements, administrative expenses, and the actual cash incentive, which maxed out at $1,024 per year, split between the doctor and patient. “Financial incentive interventions are only effective sometimes. When these programs show health benefits, the next question should be whether the health gains are worth the added costs, which is what we modeled in this study,” said lead author Ankur Pandya, assistant professor of health decision science. The study was published today in JAMA Network Open. CVD is the leading cause...