Health Test Gift Cards -- Brilliant or Bribery?

Oct. 22, 2008— -- Colonoscopies, pap smears, mammograms. People need them and yet, few are keen on getting them.

To encourage such screening, public health advocates are increasingly offering some sweeteners that put Mary Poppins' little spoonful of sugar to shame, even if it makes some doctors a little leery.

First, there are the parties. In a mammogram party, women get food, massages and other pampering before submitting their bosoms to the painful smashing of a mammography machine. Then, for both sexes, there's the colonoscopy party -- a similar event minus, thankfully, the food.

In one Colorado town last year, the local hospital escorted colonoscopy patients in a limo and provided water in martini glasses, according to the Rocky Mountain News.

This year, the trend has moved to gift cards and giveaways to induce people to go to the doctor. The CDC recently offered gift cards to influential speakers in the gay community to increase awareness of HIV/AIDS.

In Illinois, the state health department enticed parents to get health screenings for their children by giving away $50 gas gift cards to the first 1,000 parents who signed up.

Despite all the extra patients getting screenings, many doctors are ambivalent about the practice of health giveaways.

In an ideal world, many doctors would prefer to build a relationship with patients to offer better treatment, something that may not happen with an in-and-out health screening initiative.

"I do think that patients mostly benefit from having a regular physician rather than a doc in the box," said Dr. Anthony Elias, the medical director of the Breast Cancer and Sarcoma Programs at the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Aurora, Colo.

"However, providing free or reduced-rate mammograms or colonoscopies might increase the number who get these tests and these screens typically do not benefit as much from physician continuity," he said.

Other doctors are concerned about what happens when a person attends a screening, gets a diagnosis, and doesn't have a regular doctor for support and treatment.