New England Regional Headache Center Inc

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The New England Regional Headache Center, Inc., is a multispecialty center dedicated to helping patients with intractable headaches and migraine disorders. Herbert G. Markley, M.D., is a neurologist who specializes in the treatment of headaches and migraines.
Dr. Herbert Markley and his colleagues Carolyn Benson, Advanced Practice Nurse Practitioner and Larry Lockerman, D.D.S., an expert in facial pain are your professional staff.
Dr. Herbert Markley was the director of the Headache Center at the UMass Memorial Campus since 1983 and has been has been the Director of the New England Regional Headache Center along with Dianna Gubber-Markley, the Administrator since 1983. Our office is located at 85 Prescott Street, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Clinical trials are being conducted at the center for the treatment of migraine. For further information on current studies go to Patient Services.
In addition to our own advanced medical management for headache disorders, patients may be referred to other specialists in multiple disciplines throughout the region, including Pain Centers and alternative practitioners.
If you are troubled by severe, frequent or complicated headaches:

Herbert G. Markley, MD, FAAN, FAHS, is a Board certified neurologist and full-time headache specialist. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, then did additional training in Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, in Neurology at McGill University (Montreal Neurological Institute) and in Neuropharmacology at the University of Colorado. He has been in
Worcester, Massachusetts since 1983 where he is currently the Director of the New England Regional Headache Center. He is an Affiliate and former Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is also board-certified in the new specialty of Headache Medicine, as well as being a long-time Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and member of its Section on Headache and Facial Pain. He is a founding member of the Headache Cooperative of New England, formerly the Treasurer and Vice-President, currently a Member of the Board of Directors. In the past, he served as the Co-Director of Education for The American Association for the Study of Headache. He is a Fellow of the American Headache Society, as well as a member of the National Headache Foundation, International Headache Society and the World Cervicogenic Headache Society.
His research activities include clinical trials of new drugs for headache management, as well as the development of new and innovative treatments for chronic headache, including surgical procedures and electrical neurostimulation. He has been selected three times for "The Best Doctors in America." Other awards include the Glaxo "Migraine Pioneer" award for initial clinical trials on Imitrex. He has consulted for such pharmaceutical companies as GlaxoSmithKline, Merck Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Abbott, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Ortho McNeil, Novartis, Johnson and Johnson, St. Jude Medical and Advanced Bionics. He serves on Advisory Boards and Speakers' Bureaus of some of these companies
Carolyn A. Benson APRN,BC, Nurse Practitioner, is a full time headache specialist.
Dianna Gubber-Markley BSM, CRC, Certified Gerontologist, NERHC, Inc. Administrator. She is a member of MGMA and ACMPE, and an AAPC Certified Medical Coder.

Larry Z. Lockerman, D.D.S., is a dentist with special expertise in the treatment of facial pain, snoring and TMJ problems. Dr. Lockerman has extensive experience in treating headache sufferers. Dr. Lockerman is also a member of the American Headache Society.

Referrals: We may make referrals to many multi-disciplinary specialists throughout Greater Worcester County including alternative healthcare practitioners.

Goals of Therapy
Our therapeutic goals are to minimize the number and intensity of your headaches while simultaneously minimizing the side effects of medications. Most patients do improve, and even complete cessation of all headaches is possible. We work with you toward the goal of returning you to work or to full activity even if headaches are not completely controlled. For some patients, improvement is not possible even with daily medications. We provide continued supportive care for such individuals, and also offer trials of therapy with new drugs or medical devices when they become available. We also are participating in nationwide trials of new medications and medical devices not available to the general public, and these experimental protocols may offer hope for improvement for some patients. We do not utilize narcotic analgesics for treatment and actively work to discontinue them in all patients referred to us.

The initial visit may be with Dr. Markley or with Ms. Benson, although we do screen patients to try to place the most complicated patients with Dr. Markley. If severe headaches improve after several visits, then patients may be transferred to the care of the Nurse Practitioner, who is highly skilled in headache management. The staff physicians will still be supervising your care, and they will be available in the Center to consult or to answer questions. Our staff physicians or nurses will return your phone calls if you have any problems with headaches or side effects of medications. If your headache problems worsen in the future, Dr. Markley will resume working with you directly until the problems are controlled again.

For Your First Appointment:
Prior to your appointment, if your insurance requires it, we must receive a valid referral generated from your insurance company through your Primary Care Physician. If you do not have a referral you should be prepared to pay the full amount of the new patient visit. You may make payment arrangements with the office staff. We recommend that you call us to ensure that all the required paperwork is in place prior to your visit with us. We cannot accept patients who are using daily opiate narcotics, either for pain control or for other treatment.

Appointments are confirmed by telephone a few days prior to your visit. If we are unable to reach you, or you do not call to confirm your appointment within 24 hours, we will cancel your appointment and give it to another patient.
Please arrive at least 15 minutes early for registration.
Bring your completed headache diaries, medication bottles, MRIs or x-ray reports and copies of any and all previous medical records about headache or other relevant medical reports. This includes doctors' progress notes, discharge summaries from hospitalizations, pharmacy printouts for the last several years and the like. The more detail you can provide about past treatments that did not work, the more we can help you now.
The initial appointment lasts at least 80 minutes, so plan your day accordingly.

Insurance co-pays are due at the time of your visit.
Please understand that we take your migraines seriously. If you do not confirm your appointment with the receptionist your appointment time will be given to another patient who has been also been waiting desperately to be seen, and a letter will be sent to your PCP letting him/her that you have missed this scheduled appointment. It is our goal to coordinate your health care delivery with all parties involved.

If a migraine is severe and produces nausea and vomiting, you may need to come to the Center for emergent treatement. If this is not possible, then you should be treated at the nearest hospital Emergency Room. Many insurance plans require that you contact your Primary Care Physician to secure approval before you can visit the Emergency Room. Once in the Emergency Room, your care becomes the responsibility of the ER team, who will select whatever medication seems appropriate to them. Please ask the Emergency Room staff to send a copy of the ER record to your Headache Center clinician.