Hawaii Patient Reward And Incentives to Support Empowerment

Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States (OECD 2013). It is also known that certain populations are at greater risk for diabetes. In Hawaii, diabetes disproportionally affects Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders as they are three times more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes. In addition, in 2010 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health reported that Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders in Hawaii were 5.7 times as likely as Caucasians living in Hawaii to die from diabetes(Office of Minority Health, 2010).

In order to address the challenges that chronic diseases impose on individuals and the health care system the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is assessing the impact of incentivizing patients to increase self-care and disease management. Previous studies have demonstrated that monetary incentives have been associated with an improvement in behavioral outcomes, most notably when the incentive is received immediately following the targeted behavior (Volpp, K.G., et.al., 2008; Mitchell, M.S., et.al., 2013). Cahill et al. (2008) showed that economic incentives were tied to smoking cessation and led to a decrease in relapse within a year. Our study seeks to build on these findings and determine whether financial incentives may provide a way to improve diabetes self-management.

Data:

Electronic data (Labs, Outcomes) - January 1st, 2013 through December 31, 2015 Electronic data (Claims) - January 1st, 2011 through December 31, 2015

Inclusion criteria

• Clinically diagnosed with diabetes mellitus
• 18 years of age or older
• Medicaid recipient
• At recruitment has an HbA1c level of ≥ 6.5
• At recruitment is receiving care coordination at Kaiser Permanente Hawaii

Exclusion criteria

• Current pregnancy - gestational diabetes
• End-stage Renal Disease
• Does not speak English