MGMC S New Prescription Refill Policy

MGMC’s Prescription Refill Policy

Currently our office receives a large volume of calls, faxes, and electronic messages daily for medication refill requests, requiring consistent prescribing policies and careful monitoring. Our transition to an Electronic Health Record has made this even more apparent. As of April, 2012, we have a new prescription refill policy. We understand that this is a change for both you and us. We hope to work together to ensure safe and high quality medical care.

 Before you come to your regular appointment, please look over your medications, diabetes supplies, inhalers, etc. to determine if you need any new prescriptions at your appointment.  We require office visits on a regular basis for all of our patients taking prescription medication. The interval will vary depending on the type of medication prescribed, but is at least every 6 months. Please be sure you have enough medication to last until your next scheduled visit.  If possible, please bring all your prescription bottles with you to your appointment. This is important to make sure that you are taking the correct medications and the correct doses. We will continue to take the time to carefully review your medications and write refills at your office visit. We will also ask you to review a list of medications to confirm that it’s correct.  As part of our new policy, we offer the following options for ordinary prescription refills: o We send most prescriptions electronically to local pharmacies. You may ask the pharmacy to set up electronic renewals as well. o We can send prescriptions electronically or electronic fax to a mail-order pharmacy. Please make sure you give us the correct and full information of the company – including a location, fax and phone number. OVER Controlled medications: We require these additional safety measures for narcotics, tranquilizers, and stimulants (i.e. for ADD): 1) If you are on a narcotic, tranquilizer, or stimulant (i.e. for attention deficit disorder) prescribed by a MGMC physician, as an ongoing treatment, you must see your doctor every 2 months for refills. By law, narcotics and stimulants can only be refilled for 1 month at a time. 2) If your doctor is not available, you must see one of the three other doctors. 3) No prescriptions of narcotics or stimulants for chronic use will be phoned or faxed to the pharmacy. 4) If you are taking narcotic pain medications, your doctor will ask you to sign a “Pain Contract”, which provides more ways to keep your treatment safe and legal. 5) If you are taking a narcotic, your doctor will request a urine drug screen periodically. You must provide the sample in the office at that visit, or go to Quest Diagnostics.

Making the new policy work smoothly for you: Our new policy will be to call in appropriate requests for prescription refills within 2 business days. and written prescriptions available within 4 business days. Please let our staff know if your request is urgent or if you are out of medication, in which case we will try to provide refills sooner. If you call to request a refill but are overdue for a follow-up visit and/or blood work (necessary for monitoring the safety or effectiveness of a medication), the provider may agree to renew only enough to last until you can schedule an appointment. It is your responsibility to schedule an appointment before you run out of medication. Please schedule your next visit before you leave our office. We understand that there might be a situation when you do have to call us for a prescription. Please look at the list below and see what you can do to avoid incurring a prescription refill fee.  Are you changing to a new local pharmacy? You should call your new pharmacy before you run low, and request that your prescriptions be transferred from your old pharmacy. We sometimes do not have to write new prescriptions.  Are you going on an extended vacation and need to use an out-of-town pharmacy? You need to call the NEW pharmacy that you will be using and have them contact your hometown pharmacy to have your prescriptions transferred. When you return home, you have to reverse the process.  Are you changing to a new mail order pharmacy? Some pharmacies will transfer your prescriptions to the new pharmacy. If you still have refills on your current prescriptions, please check with your current mail order pharmacy to see if your prescriptions can be transferred.

Thank you for choosing the Medical Group at Marple Commons for your Medical Home. We look forward to working with you to assure safe and high quality medical care.