It’s been awhile but the laws are still fairly new. Anyway under the new regulations you are required to pick up a hard copy from the doctor each month for chronic pain medications. This is generally no problem as the doc is two blocks from the pharmacy.
However I have the opportunity to spend January through March in the south next year and an 1800 mile round trip to the doctor each month is a bit much. So, is it legal for my doctor to give me two post dated scripts and a pharmacist in another state to fill it?
You’ll need to provide more information. I had thought that drugs containing hydrocodone could be prescribed in a three month supply without having to see the physician. What drug are you taking, and what schedule is it on?
Depending on the laws in your home state and the state where you are going, it may be legal for the physician to give you three prescriptions, all dated the same day, with two of them saying “Do not fill until …”, which you may then fill sequentially.
This is legal under federal law (see, e.g., the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy), but either state may have more restrictive laws.
Whether a pharmacy will fill an out-of-state prescription depends on state law (and to a lesser extent the pharmacy’s own rules). Texas law, e.g., allows pharmacies to fill prescriptions from any other state under various conditions (mostly, that the pharmacy has a written plan on file with the Texas authorities for authenticating prescriptions), but some other states are more restrictive.
Your best bet is going to be to call your doctor’s office and then a pharmacy down south to check exactly which state laws are going to apply to you.
For schedule II drugs, (as hydrocodone now is), it’s legal for a doctor to write two separate prescriptions at the same time, each for a month’s supply. Each must be dated accurately (i.e. the date they were written on), but the 2nd script should indicate that it is to be filled at the future date, one month later.
Whether or not a pharmacy will honor a prescription from an out of state prescriber depends on both local state laws and individual pharmacy policy.
It is not a legal requirement that a physician see a patient every month to renew a schedule II drug. However, the physician prescribing chronic schedule II meds for a patient would be unwise to see such a patient less than every 3 months. Failing to do so could result in sanctions from the State licensing board, or investigation from the DEA or both.
QtM, Schedule II drug prescriber (among other things).
As written, no, post-dated prescriptions (ie with a written date for the day to be filled) are invalid under DEA rules. However, as slash and QtM both pointed out, you can have a doctor write for separate prescriptions dated to the same written date with some variant on the words “Do not fill until XX/XX/XXXX” on all but the initial prescription (note that it must be an actual date, however, not “May fill in 30 days”). Both are incorrect as to the number of prescriptions, however, as your doctor could actually write for as many separate prescriptions as he/she desired, provided the total days supply does not exceed 90 days. This also isn’t exactly new regulation, as it went into effect on December 19, 2007, though of course your state may only have allowed this change recently. See the section Issuance of Multiple Prescriptions for Schedule II Controlled Substances in the DEA’s Pharmacist’s manual.
State laws which are more restrictive, whether in your home state or the state you are visiting, can override this, so it’s worthwhile to check with your regular pharmacist (for home state) and a pharmacist in the state you’ll be visiting to be sure this is allowed. As to whether or not, assuming it’s allowed in both states, a pharmacist will fill it, you’ll probably need to consider a couple of things. If your regular pharmacy is a chain with a centralized database, consider using that same chain in the visiting state (if possible) so the pharmacist can see your fill history, especially if the Schedule II drug you take is a large quantity or high dosage (Ohio uses 80mg of morphine equivalents per day as it’s “press pause” point for physician and pharmacist evaluation, as an example of where you start trending into “high” doses, though other sources use a different threshold). If you can’t use the same chain, consider calling well ahead of time to the pharmacy you intend on using in your visiting state and ask them if they will fill an out of state prescription, and have your doctor and regular pharmacy’s contact information on hand if they ask for it for verification purposes. Regardless of which pharmacy you use, do not show up several days early to get the fill, unless the pharmacist needs you to drop off the prescription before they order the drug, as this is viewed badly even in your own state, and may be a deal-breaker for filling in a state other than the one your prescription was issued in. Alternatively, if your insurance plan has a mail order pharmacy, and the mail order pharmacy allows for dispensing schedule II medications, you could consider using that service for the period of time you are out of your regular state, provided, again, state law and your doctor allow for this.
Missed the editing window: Technically, based on re-reading their wording, neither slash or QtM are wrong on the legality of their quantity of prescriptions, so I apologize. A prescriber can, however, write for more than 3 prescriptions at a time for schedule II medications, provided their state laws allow it. If your doctor wanted to write for 10 day supplies, he/she could write up to 9 separate prescriptions. They also can write a single schedule II prescription for any day supply they wanted, even if it exceeded 90 days, and still not run afoul of federal regulations, though of course, state regulations often vary and are often more restrictive.
Thanks all.
Just a tip:
If you have insurance paying, check with them BEFORE filling a 90-day script.
I don’t think mine will pay or more than a 30 day supply at once. I would need 3 separate scripts (unless I want to pay $200/mo/drug).