Tag: headache

As If I Have Nothing Better To Do

Ask most primary care physicians and they will probably tell you they waste a lot of time getting medications approved for their patients. I just dealt with this for one of my patients. He had been on it for four years, but they wanted some information from me. It seems they didn’t trust my judgement and wanted recent lab work to confirm he wasn’t taking too much, even though I had him on the lowest dose. The patient has insurance with Regence, and OptumRx manages the prescription benefit.

I called OptumRx and they first asked if I was a member or calling from a provider’s office. Well if they had separate numbers for each they wouldn’t have to waste time asking that question. Next they asked for my name and title. Then they asked for my NPI number. Once I gave it to them they looked up my name, so they could have skipped the question of my name and merely confirmed it after they had obtained it from the NPI number. Actually they should have already had my NPI number as it was attached to the prescription, that they paid for, and I’m sure is in their records already as they get that information when physicians apply to see (and bill) their patients.

Next they asked for the patient’s member ID number. I told them I didn’t have it, but I did have the reference number they gave when they asked for me to call. I was told they couldn’t use that information, so they asked for the patient’s name and date of birth. I gave it but the person couldn’t find the patient in their system. So she then asked for that reference number. After a while she said that patient wasn’t in the group she managed and she would have to pass me on to someone else.

The next person again asked some identifying information then wanted to know a test result the patient had, as well as the normal range for that test. I gave the three numbers and she said they would be in contact. Less than 30 minutes later it was approved, but that whole call took 9 minutes! That’s an incredible waste of my time just to give 3 numbers. They could have just asked my nurse to give the lab results to them over the phone or fax it to them and not have wasted my time at all. Besides the time I spent, there was also the time spent by a couple of staff members to get the message to me, and the subsequent fax confirming that it had been approved. We deal with lots of these things every day. If physicians were their paying customers, they’d be out of business with service like that.

Migraine or Sinus Disease?

A fractal suggestive of visual changes associated with migraines.

One of the more common reasons patients come to see me is because they think they have a sinus infection. Often they say they have pain in the sinus below their eye, nasal congestion, and may have drainage. They  tell me that they’ve had it before, and antibiotics help.

Careful questioning often reveals that they are really have a migraine headache. Typically they start as a teenager or young adult, and tend to decrease in frequency and severity in the 40’s to 50’s. They may occur on one or both sides of the head, and are often associated with nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, and sometimes people get blurred vision or see white spots or zigzag lines. Going to sleep helps. Migraines are more frequent in females and tend to run in families. If patients are unaware of a family history of headaches, I tell them to ask their mother, sister or daughter because they may just not have mentioned it.

Patients think antibiotics help because their headaches get better a few days after they start the medicine. But migraines generally only last 4 hours to 3 days if you don’t take anything. So the antibiotics get the credit, when none is due.

Sometimes the pain from a migraine goes into the neck, or it’s only felt there, and patients think they have a neck problem. They may go to a chiropractor or massage therapist before they see me.

Migraines are also confused for sinusitis because nerves from the brain that are activated with migraines can stimulate the nose to cause congestion. ‘Sinus Headaches’ was invented by Madison Avenue (or at least some advertising agency) to sell pills. Outside the United States, you won’t find such pills being advertized or sold. Some people truly have headaches from sinus infections, but many headaches thought to be sinusitis, are really migraines.

There are lots of ways to treat migraines, which I won’t discuss in this article, but first you have to get the diagnosis right.

If you have headaches or neck pain, be careful about telling your doctor that you think you have a sinus infection or neck arthritis. You may just convince them you’re right, when maybe you’re having a migraine.

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