Helping Patients on Stimulant Medications
With increasing frequently, we have found patients that are prescribed stimulant medications are having issues picking up their medication orders at their local pharmacy. We have identified two predominant problems.
- Electronic prescribing of stimulant medications combined with federal and state regulations on how this class of drug can be ordered, creates a perfect storm for things to go wrong. When patients check out after their appointment, a 60-day supply of their stimulant medication is sent electronically to their pharmacy. This is called a split order, meaning a 30-day supply can be filled immediately and the second 30-day supply can be filled usually 28 days later. The second fill is noted: EARLIEST FILL DATE: Do NOT Fill Before: Date stated. Unfortunately, the pharmacy receives both orders on the same day with the only difference being the effective date and fill date note of the second prescription. This requires pharmacists to search the patient’s medication profile to locate the second order. Additionally, these orders are not supported by pharmacy apps, which is the preferred form of communication with the pharmacy. We encourage our patients who are experiencing issues filling their stimulant medications because the pharmacy cannot locate the order, to speak directly with their pharmacist to plan on how to request the second fill.
- Some stimulant medications seem to be in short supply. Unfortunately, we have no control over this issue, but we have found that food store pharmacies are better stocked (ie. Giant, Shop Rite, Wegmans) than larger pharmacy chains (ie. CVS, Walgreens). If you continue to have a problem getting your prescribed stimulant, we encourage you to either find a pharmacy with stock or pick up a paper script so that they can present the written order to a pharmacy. If the pharmacy is not able to fill the order, the patient can request the script back in order to take to another pharmacy to fill. The benefit is that when time is of the essence, the patient has control of taking the written prescription themselves to another pharmacy as opposed to searching for a pharmacy with supply and waiting for a prescriber to send an electronic order. Please note these electronic orders need to be sent directly from the prescriber and they are sent at the end of the day.
Our hope is that addressing these issues patients can be better prepared when interacting with their pharmacy and advocating for their needs.
