Insurance coverage of triptan medications varied widely between health plans and imposed quantity limits, step therapy, prior authorization requirements, and multiple co-payment tiers, according to findings published in the July 9 online issue of Headache.

"The complexity and convolution of finding and understanding much of the insurance information was a bit dismaying," first author Mia T. Minen, MD, chief of headache research in the division of headache medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center, told Neurology Today in an interview.

Dr. Minen noted that given the overuse of opioids in the US, "key players might realize that they should work on improving access to non-opioid therapies… In addition, with the increasing likelihood of more expensive migraine medications coming to the market, such as the calcitonin gene-related peptide antagonists, insurance companies might decide to lower the barriers of these cheaper alternatives," she said.