Robert E. Shapiro, MD, PhD: Migraine Care in the Era of COVID-19

“We were talking about all of the challenges we were experiencing, and how these undoubtedly translated to challenges for all of our colleagues in headache medicine and their patients.”

In mid-March, during a teleconference for the American Headache Society’s practice management committee, a number of headache specialists, including Robert E. Shapiro, MD, PhD, brought up a number of issues that were plaguing their ability to conduct their medical practices in the midst of COVID-19.

The special article that came about as a result of this conversation was published at the end of March in Headache touched on a number of clinical strategies for the treatment of migraine that can be done without in‐person visits to the clinic or the emergency department, and described methods for health insurance companies to undertake to remove the barriers to quality care for migraine.

Shapiro, a professor of neurology, University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, and founding president, Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy, spoke with NeurologyLive about the paper and what the group hoped to achieve by compiling it. He expanded on the pleas the group made to insurers and highlighted the challenges which inspired the undertaking.

The article can be viewed in full here.

REFERENCE

Szperka CL, Ailani J, Barmherzig R, et al. Migraine Care in the Era of COVID‐19: Clinical Pearls and Plea to Insurers. Headache. Published March 30, 2020. doi: 10.1111/head.13810