For those who take medication every day, it's not always easy to remember to do so. Others simply don't want to go through the hassle. However, a new app will have you looking forward to your daily regimen.
HealthPrize is a free mobile app that rewards you for taking your medicine. In addition to just taking care of yourself, some of the things you can earn by using HealthPrize to take your medication are gift cards to retailers, such as Starbucks and Amazon, cookbooks and donations to a charity of your choice.
The app sends users daily texts or emails asking if they've taken their medication for the day. When the user responds affirmatively, he or she receives points that go toward those rewards. Pharmaceutical companies pay for the prizes, according to The New York Daily News. Users also earn points for refilling their prescriptions and taking quizzes that educate them about their conditions.
Connecticut-based doctor Katrina Firlik and health care entrepreneurs Tom Kottler and James Jorasch launched HealthPrize in 2009. It recently partnered with West Pharmaceutical Services, a company that makes packaging and devices for injectable medications. HealthPrize also teamed up with Connexions Loyalty recently to expand the benefits pharmaceutical companies can give to patients for taking their medication.
One of the goals of HealthPrize is to make sure everyone takes their medication since those who don't are at risk for devastating conditions, such as strokes, heart attacks, blood clots and even death. Patients that don't take their medicines can contribute to more than $290 billion a year in healthcare costs in the U.S., according to a report by the New England Healthcare Institute. About 50 percent of people don't take drugs that lower their cholesterol as they should, which are some of the most commonly-prescribed medications in the U.S., according to a study published in the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy.
People don't take their medications for a wide variety of reasons, according to an NPR story on HealthPrize. Some don't want to pay the co-pay. Others don't want to experience the side effects that some medications will bring. For many people with chronic conditions, medications don't make them feel better.
HealthPrize has been slow to grow, but a couple of studies conducted by the company have shown that the app does work. In one study, 300 patients used HealthPrize for 20 months, and they were 54 percent more likely on average to take their blood pressure medication than patients taking the same drugs not in the program. In a larger study with 7,800 patients taking acne medication, those who used HealthPrize refilled their prescription nearly three times as much as those not using the app.
So it seems that just a few swipes of your smartphone can make the medicine go down.
