Background: In the last decade, a number of studies have documented the eco
nomic impact of migraine headaches on society. Although previous research h
as shown that patients with migraine headache consume a greater amount of h
ealth care resources than those without migraine, the economic impact of th
is condition on a Medicaid population has not been assessed.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the health care resourc
e utilization of patients with and without migraine headache in the Idaho M
edicaid population.
Methods: Idaho Medicaid claims from 1998 were reviewed to identify cases an
d controls. Four controls, marched for age, sex, race, and residence, were
obtained for each case. Physician services, hospital services, emergency ro
om services, and prescription use were compared between the 2 groups. Multi
variate analyses were performed to determine differences between the 2 grou
ps after controlling for potential confounders.
Results: Eighty percent of the cases were female, and 94% of the patients w
ere white. Patients with migraine headache had statistically significantly
higher health care resource consumption than matched controls (P < 0.05). T
otal log costs for prescription use, physician services, and hospital servi
ces were significantly higher (P < 0.001) in the migraine group even after
controlling for migraine-associated comorbid conditions and demographic var
iables.
Conclusions: Total health care costs for migraine patients were 1.6 times h
igher than for matched controls. The results of this study suggest that mig
raine is a significant economic burden to the Medicaid program.