Background: Maintaining chronic disease patients clinically stable after discharge is an important imperative for avoiding costly hospital readmissions. A good understanding of the patient’s clinical risk profile is today considered the most important factor predictive of unfavorable patient outcomes. However, an often overlooked risk factor is patient behavior and patient decision drivers. Insights from the behavioral sciences can shed light on how individuals actually make decisions. Behavioral sciences have been used in marketing for years but are rarely used in the medical field. Recent studies from the UK have shown that up to 40% of the costs incurred for readmission/ emergency room visits are incurred by patients that should have been taken care of in the ambulatory care or at home. The behavioral drivers for these patients vary: not a good image of GPs, patients that are overly worried and anxious, an opportunity to get access to health care without an appointment. Discussion: Not applying insights from the behavioral sciences to the medical field carries an important and avoidable cost for the health system caring for chronic disease patients. Healthcare should invest resources allowing to segment chronic disease patients at discharge, according to their behavioral profile, and provide support and education for those patients that are likely to burden the emergency rooms and hospitals for non-eligible reasons. Conclusion: Profiling chronic disease patients at risk of costly hospital readmissions based on insights from the behavioral sciences represents an opportunity to address an important cost driver that is currently overlooked in relation to the traditional clinical risk assessment.