1. Before you come to your regular appointment, you should look over your medications, to determine if you need to request any new / refill of prescriptions at your appointment.
2. We do require office visits on a regular basis for all of our patients taking prescription medication. The interval will vary depending on the condition being treated and the type of medication prescribed. Please be sure you have enough medication to last until your next scheduled visit.
3. Patients requesting prescriptions not obtained during scheduled appointments will be charged $50 per prescription. This also applies to hormone adjustments.
4. Please bring all your prescription bottles (or an updated medication list, or photos of the bottle taken with your smart phone) with you to your appointment. This is important to make sure that: you are taking the correct medications and the correct doses; and
we have an up-to-date list of your medications. We will carefully review your medications and write refills at your office visit. We will also ask you to review the new prescriptions to make sure that they are written correctly.
5. As part of our policy, we will offer the following options for prescription refills:
We can e-prescribe your prescriptions. We can provide written prescriptions.
We can call in certain medication to your requested pharmacy
We can fax prescriptions in to a mail-order pharmacy. You will need to provide us with completed forms provided by your mail order pharmacy.
Our policy is to call in appropriate requests for prescription refills within 2 business days (not including weekends and holidays).
6. 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 call in enough medication to a local pharmacy to last until we are able to schedule an office visit. It is your responsibility to schedule an appointment before you run out of medication. You should schedule your next visit at this time. A prescription fee will apply.
7. 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.
Q: Are you changing to a new local pharmacy?
A: You should call your new pharmacy and request that your prescriptions be transferred from your old pharmacy. We sometimes do not have to write new prescriptions.
Q: Are you going on an extended vacation and need to use an out-of-town pharmacy?
A: 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. If you use a national pharmacy (for example Walgreens, Walmart, and CVS), it might be a different and easier process since their computers are connected, than if you change in different networks.
REFILLING A PRESCRIPTION
Every request for a refill requires the following steps:
Phone message transcribed or fax printed
Phone message or fax is brought or uploaded to medical record
Patient’s chart is pulled from medical records or accessed by computer, and verified
Request is attached to chart
Chart is brought to nurse
Nurse reviews chart for pertinent information
Verifies chart and request
Is medication a controlled substance?
When were last labs done?
When was patient last seen?
Chart brought to doctor
Doctor reviews chart
Verifies chart and request
Reviews patient’s labs and medical history
Does medication itself require labs or levels to be checked
Does medication have risk for dependency or abuse
Is medication scheduled (use and distribution restricted)
Is there a risk for interaction with other medications
Does medication have new FDA guidelines or recommendations
Does the benefit of continuing medications outweigh risks
Doctor makes decisions about whether or not to fill prescription request and whether or not to give subsequent refills
Does patient need follow-up appointment?
Doctor documents decision in chart
Doctor writes prescription
Chart returned to nurse
Nurse calls or faxes in prescription, or physician e-prescribes
Nurse documents prescription and pharmacy in chart
Chart returned to medical records.
Tamyra Comeaux, MD 