Effect of daily migraine prevention on health care utilisation in an insured patient population

The economic benefits of daily migraine prevention have been subject to ongoing debate. This study was undertaken to determine if the initiation of prevention had an observable effect on ambulatory health care utilisation when compared to acute migraine treatment alone. Administrative claims data from the Military Health System were used to conduct a retrospective, longitudinal cohort study of 3762 patients with migraine. New users of daily migraine prevention were matched to a reference group of non-users using propensity score methods. This matched sample then was used to evaluate the effect of prevention on ambulatory health care expenditures. The study results showed that exposure to daily migraine prevention led to lower rates of utilisation relative to what new patients would have consumed in the absence of treatment. The results suggest that additional economic benefits could be realised by increasing the appropriate use of daily migraine prevention.