Richard Mathera

Speaking & Talks

The Science of Habit Design: How Healthcare Companies Can Change Patient Behavior

Most medical apps demand high attention and cognitive effort from patients at their most vulnerable moments. I’ll reveal how this proposition undermines patient care – and how to fix it through behavioral design.

Drawing from work with a leading pharma as well as companies like One Medical, Tytocare, and Marvin, I’ll demonstrate how understanding behavioral insights transformed medical apps facing behavioral challenges into helpful tools patients actually use. These redesigns have doubled patient engagement, increased medical visit completion by 65%, and dramatically improved health outcomes. Now, as healthcare providers rush to implement AI features, these same behavioral principles are proving more crucial than ever for designing technology that both patients and physicians trust and adopt.

Key insights:

  • The critical link between behavioral science and patient adherence
  • How to design feedback systems that drive immediate action
  • When social proof outperforms clinical authority
  • Why mental models can matter more than features in healthcare apps
  • Principles for designing AI health tools patients trust and use

The Psychology of Incentives: What Actually Works (And What Backfires)

Most companies default to cash rewards to drive behavior. But I’ve discovered something surprising: paying people can actually make them less likely to do what you want. Drawing from  work with NeuGen, Steady, and leading healthcare providers, I’ll reveal the hidden forces that determine whether incentives help or harm.

Through real case studies, you’ll discover why a simple behavioral approach outperformed a $10 reward in driving fintech adoption, and how a healthcare company saved money by testing behavioral approaches against different financial incentives. Most importantly, you’ll learn a framework for designing reward systems that actually improve outcomes – whether you’re motivating employees, customers, or patients.

Key insights:

  • When financial incentives secretly reduce motivation
  • The surprising alternative that matched a $10 reward
  • The hidden psychology behind incentive framing
  • Why the timing of rewards can matter as much as the amount
  • An unexpected discovery by a health plan about patient motivation
  • The counterintuitive truth about employee recognition
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