Could $600 Help Smokers Kick the Habit for Good?

They say money talks, and when it comes to quitting smoking, that may be true. According to researchers who compared quit rates among people who were offered up to $600 in financial incentives to quit and those who were not, they found significantly higher quit rates among the people who were paid for their efforts.

The study was conducted among more than 3,200 patients who still actively smoked and were referred for low-dose CT lung cancer screening at several major U.S. medical centers. The patients were Black or Hispanic, had lower incomes, or lived in rural areas.

Four smoking cessation strategies were tested

• Standard ask-advise-refer care, which included referrals to resources available in the community or health system.
• Standard care plus free smoking cessation medications.
• Standard care plus free medications and financial incentives.
• Standard care plus free medications and financial incentives plus a text-based behavioral tool called FutureMe, which prompted participants to imagine their future smoke-free selves.

The patients were followed for six months, and abstinence rates were confirmed through blood tests. The authors found:

• 3% of the participants in the usual care alone group quit.
• 1% of patients in the group that received usual care plus free smoking cessation medications quit.
• 8% of patients who received usual care plus free medications and financial incentives quit.
• 2% of people who received usual care, free medications, incentives, and FutureMe quit.

The researchers believe the study is the largest to date to evaluate financial incentives for smoking cessation among patients referred for lung cancer screening. It is also the largest such study to involve medically underserved populations.

“These participants had smoked for decades and likely made multiple unsuccessful quit attempts in the past,” said study author Scott D. Halpern, MD, PhD, director of the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research Center at Penn Medicine. “We found that adding financial incentives increased quit rates in a population that can be especially difficult to reach with traditional smoking cessation approaches.”

The investigators are now planning additional trials designed to determine how financial incentive-based smoking cessation programs can be implemented on a broader basis.

The study was published by JAMA. 

Highlighted in RC Buzz, October 26, 2026