Isn't Being Healthy a Good Enough Incentive?

There has been a rise in news stories about new innovations in encouraging customers to stick to taking their prescriptions as directed. The motivation? It seems that Medicare is providing financial rewards to insurers and pharmacies for improving patient compliance. The latest story (WSJ, 5/21/13, p. B7) introduces a whole host of customer performance tactics, such as:

• Big data analytics (scan patient claims and clinical data to identify people with high non-compliance risk)
• Earn points and prizes for taking medicines as directed
• Including sensors in pills themselves that report to a mobile device when a pill was ingested (with reports delivered to doctors and family members)
• Including sensors in pill bottles to assess remaining medicine
• Designing a pill bottle that develops "banana" spots to indicate expiration