AAN 2026 | What are the greatest gaps in health equity in headache care today?
Muhammad Yousaf, MD, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, Roanoke, VA, discusses the key challenges in treating patients with headaches, highlighting access to care, particularly in rural areas, as the top priority. Dr Yousaf also emphasizes the importance of having a multidisciplinary team to provide a convergent plan, as well as access to expensive new medications and navigating insurance coverage. This interview took place at the 78th American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL.
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Transcript
Great question. Access to care is obviously number one. Patients really have to move from different parts of the state. For us, for example, we are in southwest Virginia, it’s a rural area which has some urban areas as well. But patients have to drive for two hours, three hours at times to come to us. So access to care is the top priority. Number two is that obviously headache specialists and even PM&R, TBI specialists are very restricted in the country...
Great question. Access to care is obviously number one. Patients really have to move from different parts of the state. For us, for example, we are in southwest Virginia, it’s a rural area which has some urban areas as well. But patients have to drive for two hours, three hours at times to come to us. So access to care is the top priority. Number two is that obviously headache specialists and even PM&R, TBI specialists are very restricted in the country. So having everything under one roof really can help these patients come along with a convergent plan. Number three is access to the medications. The new medications are pretty expensive. So we have to really set the expectations and we have to talk to insurance companies back and forth about these medications, why they should be used as first line, especially the preventives. That’s what the American Academy of Neurology and the American Headache Society is doing really well, to create this platform and to make insurance companies also understand that these medications really help these patients and they should be really used as a priority. So I think these three points should be taken very seriously and we are trying our best to help these patients with these.
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