More Evidence Indicates the Inaccessibility of Migraine Care

The Headache Disease Patient Access Survey revealed people with migraine encounter many difficulties when seeking care. Individuals reported dealing with cost barriers, dissatisfaction with treatment plans, and a delay in seeking care and receiving a diagnosis.

Insurance providers create difficulties for accessing treatment. The majority of responders reported prior authorizations (87%), medication dose limits (82%), and coverage denials (68%) . In the survey, 63% of respondents reported spending $100 or more, with 16% spending $500 or more. Over half (52%) waited a year to seek help from clinicians. 

Nearly all respondents (96%) had tried complementary or alternative therapies and 69% used biobehavioral treatments. Fewer than 20% of respondents also tried neuromodulator or neurostimulator devices for migraine.

Responders currently seeing a headache specialist reported spending more time with their clinician during regular appointments, compared with individuals seeing a general neurologist. Gaps in satisfaction with clinician were found by the type of clinician primarily treating respondents' headache, with 82% of those currently treated by a headache specialist reporting they were "satisfied" or better with their clinician, while 64% of those seeing a primary care doctor and only 56% seeing a neurologist were similarly satisfied.

"The majority of respondents to our survey reported a high frequency of headache days. While this is not representative of the larger population, we believe it is a unique sample of people to explore the migraine experience, particularly one that may be highly burdened by their disease." noted Beth Morton, principal investigator of Coalition for Headache and Migraine Patients (CHAMP).