Aetna "Take your Pill" Lottery...

How bad do the insurance companies want the patients to take their medications? Well enough to try a pilot program with an electronic umbilical cord to tie the patient to a device. It doesn't say exactly how the device will work, but I am guessing once you remove a pill, it will make note, but who knows, it might be a little more sophisticated than that, nothing surprises me today. I would think this is targeted at chronic illnesses whereby pills are taken every day. There's a message telling you how much you would have won if you miss one...interesting, so one more electronic device to deal with. BD

Aetna, through its nonprofit foundation, is funding research to find out whether a daily lottery with cash prizes will help improve patients' medication adherence. The Aetna Foundation last fall gave researchers a $400,000 grant to fund a study at the University of Pennsylvania that will use prizes of $10 and $100 as rewards for taking medication as prescribed.

1-in-10 chance of winning $10 every day they take their medication and a 1-in-100 chance of winning $100. Each day a text message will tell a subject whether he or she has won the lottery, or, if the dose wasn't taken, whether he or she would have won.