Ellis / Guides
Refill or renewal: why the pharmacy sent you back to the doctor
There are no refills left on this is not the pharmacy being difficult. It means the prescription has been used up as it was written, and only the person who wrote it can write another.
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Two different requests
A refill is a fill that the existing prescription already allows; the pharmacy can do it on its own. A renewal is a new prescription; only the prescriber can authorise it. The label says which situation you are in — a line reading something like refills remaining, and a number. When the number is zero, the pharmacy’s hands are tied and the request has to go to the doctor.
Why the doctor is slow
Renewals usually need a review, offices handle them in batches, and a medicine that has been taken for a while may need an appointment before it is renewed. A few working days is ordinary. It is not a sign that something is wrong, and it is the reason the request should start early.
How to start it
- Ask the pharmacy to send the renewal request to the prescriber electronically; most will, and it arrives with everything filled in
- Or call the office yourself with the name, date of birth, the medicine and the pharmacy
- Ask when to expect an answer, and who to call if it has not come by then
- Start when there is about a week of tablets left, not on the morning of the last one
Controlled medicines are different
Some medicines are more tightly regulated: smaller quantities, no automatic refills, sometimes an appointment for each new prescription. They need more notice, not less. The pharmacist will tell you what the particular medicine requires.
What to write down
For each medicine: refills remaining, when the last fill was, and when a renewal will be due. Kept by one person, in one place. Most emergency weekend calls start with nobody having known the refills had run out.