Migraines and Health Coverage: What Does your Insurance Cover?
Thursday, October 29th, 2009It is getting more difficult for most people to buy health insurance. The rising cost of insurance premiums are already beyond the means of many individuals to pay. Families with children have it even worse. Insurance formularies are under constant revision as more and more medications are removed or reclassified to cost more. Maintenance medications are periodically eliminated leaving the patient to buy more expensive alternatives. Most consumers cannot pay the monthly premiums which leads them to purchase the bare minimum of coverage which may not address what conditions they already have or new ones which may develop later on.
The latest, on the long list of deleted services are medications for migraine headaches. In the past, migraines were traditionally treated with the pain killers, muscle relaxants and sedatives usually used for other conditions. Focus was on the symptoms and not the cause.
In the 1980’s and 1990’s, medicines requiring a physician’s permission were created to specifically target migraine relief. These medications were prescribed by themselves or in conjunction with pain or other medicines. Now, in the current day and age, many prescriptions designed expressly for severe headaches have been created, and can be obtained by patients all over the United States and the world. N/A Unfortunately, these kinds of migraine prescriptions also tend to be extremely expensive, and are either only minimally paid for or completely excluded by many medical insurance plans.
Medications developed specifically for migraines, and meant to be taken with every migraine, are often doled out in amounts of 8 to 12 pills monthly. This leaves the patient with the task of determining which migraines they can medicate and which they must suffer through to conserve medication. Insurance will not pay for early refills and so the patient must pay the lion’s share of the exorbitant cost. Even when a patient is up to date on their insurance premium payments, they often can not make use of that insurance to purchase the medications they really need. Migraine headaches can signal other health conditions. They have been linked to stroke. Are there other options for those who cannot afford the cost of medication?
Medicaid is one such possibility applied for by increasing numbers of people every month. But of course, as with all government sponsored programs, Medicaid is highly regulated, difficult to qualify for financially and mired in endless paperwork and bureaucracy. Income restrictions are strict and closely monitored. The government will also periodically review your case and all appointments must be met and phone calls returned promptly or your benefits could be canceled immediately without notice.
It’s really sad that we now have medications that have been developed, are needed, and plentiful, yet we have insurance companies are creating difficult to impossible situations for people to have access to vitally needed medications. So the question now is whether people suffering with migraines become the current victim of insurance cutbacks, or is there going to be an option for migraine sufferers to have the coverage needed to receive the medication required? Questions like these, and more, are now before the new Congress for consideration. Hopefully these answers and more with be forthcoming in the near future.
Get More Information on Various Migraine Headache Types and to Learn Migraine Health Insurance Coverage Options, Visit the Migraine Headache Guide at Migraines-Headaches.org.