Noncompliance with medical advice is one reason the U.S. health care is so costly. Yet it has received only cursory attention in the national health care debate — undoubtedly because politicians don't want to risk offending their constituents.
How bad is this problem? According to a study by the National Community Pharmacists Association, three of every four Americans don't take their drugs as directed. Forty-nine percent forget to take them; 31% don't fill their prescriptions and 29% stop taking their pills before the drugs run out! According to the New England Healthcare Institute, this costs the U.S. $290 billion per year (over 11% of our $2.5 trillion health care bill).
More waste comes from missed appointments. According to a cross-study analysis, no-show rates for doctor's visits run as high as 20% to 30%. Although there is no system-wide estimate of the effect, one study pegs the overall cost of each missed appointment to be over $700 to the health care system. Given the fact that in 2006 there were about 900 million appointments, the annual cost to the system is over $150 billion.
We think there is a tremendous opportunity to use behavioral economics (which recognizes that people aren't always rational) and relatively simple technology to create new tools that aid health organizations in managing consumers' behavior and that help patients improve their own actions. Even very small changes in patient population behaviors would have a dramatic impact on costs.
If you have 3 minutes, you can check everything here: http://blogs.hbr.org/sviokla/2010/03/how_behavioral_economics_can_h.html
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