Multiple Sclerosis: Systemic Challenges to Cost-Effective Care

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive autoimmune disorder of the central nervous system characterized by symptoms including reduced mobility, pain, fatigue, and spasticity. MS affects nearly 1 million people in the United States, with significant negative impact on a patient's quality of life, and an average lifetime cost of care in excess of $4 million. The cost-effective management of patients with MS faces several challenges.

Objective: To review the challenges to the cost-effective management of patients with MS, and to offer healthcare stakeholders a roadmap to address them.

Discussion: The cost-effective management of patients with MS, which is driven largely by how quickly a patient receives effective medication therapy, is challenged by a paucity of between-office-visit clinical data, variability of provider expertise with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), MRI machine quality, lack of standards for MRI machines and reports, misaligned financial incentives, the limited number of available Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes for brain MRI, the complexity of disease-modifying therapy (DMT) selection, poor patient adherence to treatment plans, poor communication among providers, and a lack of objective measures of disease progression.

Conclusion: Insurers, neurologists, researchers, and patient advocacy groups must address the needs of patients with MS holistically. These efforts should include establishing standards for MRI machines and reports, matching patients with MS specialists, aligning financial incentives, including creating a new CPT code for complex brain MRI, streamlining prior authorization processes of DMTs, using technology to gather patient data and improve coordination of care, and developing better measurement tools of disease activity.