Following Through on Good Intentions: The Power of Planning Prompts

Katherine Milkman, John Beshears, James Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte Madrian

No 17995, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We study whether prompts to form and recall a plan can increase individuals' responsiveness to reminders to make and attend beneficial appointments. At four companies, all employees due for a colonoscopy were randomly assigned to receive either a control mailing or a treatment mailing. The mailings were identical except that the control mailing included a blank sticky note while the treatment mailing included a sticky note that prompted the recipient to write down the appointment date for a colonoscopy and the name of the doctor who would conduct the procedure. During the seven-month follow-up period, 7.2% of treatment employees received a colonoscopy compared to 6.2% of control employees, a statistically significant difference that is roughly equal to the variation in compliance associated with a 10 percent increase in the fraction of the procedure's cost covered by insurance. The treatment effect was largest for demographic groups judged to be at the highest risk of failing to receive a colonoscopy due to forgetfulness.

JEL-codes: D03 D91 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
Note: AG EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Published as Milkman, Katherine L., John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. "Planning Prompts as a Means of Increasing Preventive Screening Rates." Preventive Medicine 56, no. 1 (January 2013): 92–93.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w17995.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Following through on Good Intentions: The Power of Planning Prompts (2012)
Working Paper: Following through on Good Intentions: The Power of Planning Prompts (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17995

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w17995

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().