When my blood-pressure prescription runs out, I know my doc likes me to come in for a quick check and maybe a little fiddling with dosage levels before he writes a new prescription.
But when I called his office, part of a huge University-based medical practice, I heard the phone tree telling me, “If you need a prescription refilled, call your pharmacy. They will fax us the necessary information to issue a new prescription.”
This is directly contrary to what we have done in past years – it’s a 12 month prescription – and it’s easier for me, but maybe not healthier. Odds are he has no idea what the message says, and if he did, he would have no power to change it.
So I have another 12 months of refills. Maybe I’ll send him an email and ask whether I should come in or not.
That seems to be the process here also. Except our doctor’s office will call us and tell us to come in for BP checks. Seems weird to me - I’ve been taking the same dosage for at least 5 years. Guess they can’t live without the copay, and the insurance reimbursement…
For most prescriptions, the pharmacy is the one to contact. When they call your doctor for the necessary papers, the doctor’s office will say either “oh, yeh, that’s fine” and write a new script or “oh, no, we need to see Boyo before we can ok another 12 months.” The pharmacy will let you know which.
My doctor’s office is just the opposite - they started a new policy last year where they no longer just phone/fax prescriptions to the pharmacy without an office visit. You now have to come in for a visit and get a new prescription. They will try to get you in to see the doctor on an expedited basis if you urgently need a refill, but generally they just try to book an appointment ahead of time for when the prescription is expected to run out.
I hate that idea … but being diabetic I keep track of my labs and like to see what is going on, and for FMLA tracking purposes when I have a flare of my pseudogout, I see the doc, get a new set of scripts for indocin and colchichine and when I am ready to go back to work, I get my gimp note. He and my endo keep a good eye on my meds, and tweak them a couple times a year [he has been making rumblings about trying out something in place of indocin that is supposed to be easier on the stomach next flare.]
My doc has a policy that the congestive heart pts and the BP pts must see him every 3 months (which seems excessive to me, but I’ve got neither problem) and will NOT renew Rx’s per phone. Since I’ve got hypothyroidism, he sees me annually and gives me a year’s Rx then. So, maybe the process is disease dependent. Certainly you should get your BP checked–most likely the pharmacy will let you know. If not, call the doc and make an appt.
The group I go to (a very, very big one) lets you request refills on line, where they get checked and approved by the doctor. 99% of the time you don’t need to see the doctor, and I suspect the office would call if they needed to see you. It actually works pretty well.
Waenara, do they allow a certain number of refills on the label? If not, how many pills come in one refill? I take some stuff which only requires a test once a year or so, and visiting the doctor every time I need a refill (every 4 weeks) would be incredibly wasteful.
The reason the message is on the phone tree is because it’s so much easier to do prescription refills by fax. It’s for people that only need refills, and don’t (or don’t know that they) have to come in again before getting a refill. The doctors I work for write Rxs all the time for just a couple of months at a time. The doctor doesn’t necessarily need to see them more than once a year, but he does want that opportunity to be asked for that refill, so he can see your chart and note that you are still taking that medication and must be stable on it. I guarantee your doctor knows all about the message telling you to call your pharmacy for refills- the vast majority of the time, people don’t need to be seen, and he’d have to hire an extra MA or two just to field those refill calls if patients weren’t told to call the pharmacy instead.
Our doctors are usually very explicit about that- they’ll tell you to come back in 6 weeks, or a few months, or whatever. If they give you a prescription good for a year, they almost always tell you to come back in a year. Most doctors don’t like to fill prescriptions for patients that haven’t been seen in over a year, that could be a liability issue.
I asked my doctor about that - they will include refills on a prescription, with varying lengths of time depending on the medication. So you need to come into the office to get a new prescription or when you run out of refills (the number of which was indicated on the original prescription).
For example, I get my birth control prescription renewed at my annual physical, and my doctor gives me one prescription with thirteen months of refills (13x28=364). After that, if I want more refills then I need to come in and have another visit/physical. That way the doctor knows that I’m getting my required routine comprehensive care and I don’t have any new problems that might contraindicate the prescription refill.
If I were taking medication for high blood pressure and my doctor wanted to see me every six months, then she would write a prescription for six months worth of pills, to dispensed however often (once per month, or maybe three refills every two months). But then when the prescription runs out they don’t authorize more refills without another office visit.
However, I’m pretty sure that pharmacists in my area have the authority to give out “bridging” prescriptions. I know a pharmacist who told me that if a patient were to run out of refills on their prescription, as long as they can show the pharmacist that they have a doctor’s appointment booked for say the next week then the pharmacist can authorize a refill for that many days only. That might just be the policy at the specific pharmacy she works at though.
Huh. I take a beta-blocker for my irregular heartbeat, and she makes me come in every six months to check my BP. If I need one refill to hold me over until I can see her, I can get that one, but have to see her before she’ll give me the 6-month Rx.