Dr Peter McAllister Explains the Economic Benefits of Migraine Prevention

Migraine accounts for many billions of dollars in direct and indirect health care costs, said Peter McAllister, MD, a neurologist, board certified headache specialist, and medical director of the New England Institute for Neurology and Headache.

Transcript:

The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®): What are some of the economic benefits of migraine prevention?

Dr. McAllister: When you look at the numbers for migraine, it is huge. It's in the many billions of dollars in health care costs and utilization. That can be divided into two buckets, really. There's direct health care costs related to migraine, and that is going to the doctor, going to the emergency department, getting migraine medication. But the much bigger slice of the pie is the indirect costs. That is the missing work, what we call absenteeism, or actually showing up for work, but being so shot from your migraine, that you have difficulty focusing, you're inefficient, and that costs the system billions of dollars. If you can get people to have a whole lot less migraine attacks per month, and then per year, etc., you're going to decrease those indirect costs as well as decrease the direct costs substantially.