Many countries are turning their attention to the use of explicit financial incentives to drive desired improvements in healthcare performance. However, we have only a weak evidence-base to inform policy in this area. The research challenge is to generate robust evidence on what financial incentives work, under what circumstances, for whom and with what intended and unintended consequences.

In this commentary, we argue that financial incentives are only one of many key components that employers should consider when designing and implementing a workplace wellness program. Strategies such as social encouragement and providing token rewards may also be effective in improving awareness and engagement. Should employers choose to utilize financial incentives, they should tailor them to ...

Background: In 2012, Switzerland changed from retrospective to prospective hospital payment based on diagnosis related groups (DRGs), following the example of the United States, Australia, and Germany. As in these countries, the objective of this transition was to motivate hospitals to improve efficiency by making them bear financial risk to some extent.Objective:...

The NOSH (Nourishing Start for Health) three-phase research study is testing whether offering financial incentives for breastfeeding improves six-eight-week breastfeeding rates in low-rate areas. This article describes phase one development work, which aimed to explore views about practical aspects of the design of the scheme. Interviews and focus groups were held with women (n = 38) and health...

an important determinant of health system performance is contracting. providers often respond to financial incentives, despite the ethical underpinnings of medicine, and payers can craft contracts to influence performance. yet contracting is highly imperfect in both single-payer and multi-payer health systems. arguably, in a competitive, multi-payer environment, contractual innovation may occur...

BACKGROUND There is evidence that financial incentive interventions, which include both financial rewards and also penalties, are effective in encouraging healthy behaviours. However, concerns about the acceptability of such interventions remain. We report on focus groups with a cross-section of adults from North East England exploring their acceptance of financial incentive interventions for e...

the objective of this research is to identify the characteristics of cost accounting systems (cas) in manufacturing companies located in the state of fars. the research is designed to answer the following questions: 1- what kind of management information systems (mis) are in - use. 2-what information are provided by these systems. 3-how - offen financial information. are issues. 4- what groups ...