Direct and Indirect Costs Among United States Commercially Insured Employees With Migraine

The aim of this study was to compare direct, indirect, and societal (direct plus indirect) costs between patients with and without migraine (controls).

Patients with migraine were identified from MarketScan claims and Health and Productivity Management databases from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2013, and were propensity score matched (1:1) to controls.

Patients with migraine (N = 26,647) were matched to controls, of whom 4323 were matched for work absence and 26,212 for short-term disability eligibility. Mean annualized direct costs ($13,032 vs $3234), indirect costs due to absence ($4104 vs $3531) and short-term disability ($1131 vs $52), and societal costs due to absence ($16,043 vs $6938) and short-term disability ($14,278 vs $3182) were all significantly higher (P < 0.001) for those patients with migraine versus controls, respectively.

Migraine imposes high direct and indirect economic burden on payers and society due to significantly higher work productivity loss than controls.