Patient preferences for medication adherence financial incentive structures: A discrete choice experiment

Background: Medication adherence for chronic conditions continues to be a challenge for patients. Patient incentives for medication adherence may help. Financial incentives delivered at the point of care may act as cues for medication-taking behavior.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate patient preferences for specific structures of financial medication adherence incentives that could feasibly be delivered at the point of care.

Methods: A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was performed using a national online survey. Study participants were adults who self-reported taking at least one prescription medication for one or more chronic conditions. Following an orthogonal design generated in SAS, the DCE included 32 paired-choice tasks. Data were analyzed using mixed logit models and stratified on participants' income level.

Results: In the full cohort (n = 933), form of financial reward (such as gift-card or cash) was 1.02 times as important to participants as the probability of incentive receipt, 1.58 times as important as monetary value, and 1.93 times as important as timing of receipt. Participants were willing to give up $31.04 of an incentive's monetary value (95% CI = $27.11-$34.98) to receive the incentive 5 months sooner (1-month vs. 6-month time-lag); $60.79 (95% CI = $53.19-$68.39) for probability of receipt to increase from a 1 out of 100 chance to a 1 out of 20 chance; and $10.52 (95% CI = $6.46-$14.58) to receive an incentive in the form of a Visa® gift-card instead of grocery store voucher. These patterns of trade-offs between attributes were generally consistent among participants with lower and higher income.

Conclusions: Regardless of socioeconomic status, patient preferences for financial medication adherence incentives delivered at the point of care may be most heavily influenced by incentive form and probability of receipt. This has implications for designing medication adherence programs in terms of incentive sustainability, patient engagement, plan star ratings, and patient outcomes.