Should Patients and Health Care Providers Receive Money Incentives for Prenatal Care?
Should Patients and Health Care Providers Receive Money Incentives for Prenatal Care? Thursday July 30, 2009#spacer{clear:left}#abc #sidebar{margin-top:1.5em}zSB(3,3) I’ll start by offering a bit of background information before I launch into my thoughts on the matter. The folks over at Health Services Research just released a study that found if you offer patients and health care providers incentives (ex: payments of $100), that it has a positive effect on a couple of things, particularly for low-income mothers. Let me give you the nutshell. • Mothers are more likely to get “timely and comprehensive prenatal care” if you offer them incentives to go… Duh… • Mothers who participate are less likely to have a baby in NICU. • There is no difference in risk of delivering low birthweight babies if their mothers did or did not participate in the program. My response is essentially two things: • Do we really need a study to tell us if someone is paid to do something they don’t want to do,
