Not sure if this is the right place for this, but . . .
A month ago, I refilled a prescription at a CVS in New York state, and when I went to refill today in Mass, found that there were no refills left - should have been 2. Turns out, according to CVS, that in New York, when you try to refill an out-of-state prescription state rules require that the prescription be transferred to New York, and that you can't then get any additional refills without a doctor visit and a new prescription. Took some finagling but managed to get a new prescription, but it was a PITA and a major annoyance.
We know all about (and generally use) 90 day mail-order meds, but this was one of those times when the doctor at the walk-in clinic chose not to write a 90 day prescriptions.
Anyhow - while I will do everything possible to avoid ever having a prescription filled in New York state again, I wonder if there are other states with similar short-sighted regulations?
I don't know - I may find out soon, as I refilled a prescription on our last trip (at a Walgreens in Idaho) and noticed the prescription # had been changed on the new bottle. We'll see!
When we were in New York recently, I refilled a prescription that had a 90 day supply. I am from Pennsylvania and they told me they would fax my Wal Mart for the prescription. They did, but only would give me a 30 day supply. I will no longer get mine refilled in New York, either.
We FT and fill about 25 Rx's/month. You may transfer scripts into NY but can't transfer them back out and NY cancels anymore refills. We sadly found out about NY about 5 yrs ago. We were really irritated in that it was a national chain, our profile shows a TX address, the Rx's were transferred in from SC or VA so, given that the local pharmacist is aware of NY law and given that they saw a request for scripts to be transferred in from another state and a profile address of yet a different state, the pharmacist should have warned us, before transferring in, about NY's aberrant pharmacy laws.
Even worse, when we picked up the scripts, we again weren't told anything and we didn't notice all the 'zero' refills. So when they were next due for a refill and we were in yet another state, we got the bad news that we no longer had any valid Rx's. Took us quite a bit of time and trouble to contact all the doctors, explain what happened to their staff, and get new prescriptions to get filled.
Been through NY several times since and not only do we not get scripts filled there, but we've made it a point to treat NY as a pass through state and not spend money there. There are some other strange laws out there in some other states as well. When getting scripts filled now in a state we've not used before, we question the pharmacist first.
Knowlton - you should have no trouble with the ID fill nor with the change in prescription #. The RX # is unique with each store as evidenced by the last 5 digits and with a chain of 1000's of pharmacies, they'd run out of numbers if a number had to stay the same across the entire chain. The profile they have on you and the new number will keep it straight.
What I've been doing is asking my Doc for multiple prescriptions at one visit. He post dates the scripts. He can even do this with narcotics, something that's new this year.
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I'm aware of the change in the law last November pertaining to Sch II narcotics. On the whole it has made our life easier but...
We're generally away from the pain mgt doctor for about 6 months and in the past, though it was a PIA, we'd call his office each month and let them know where we'd be on the following day and they'd write the Sch II scripts we need and Fed Ex them to us overnight. With the scripts then in hand, we'd try to find a pharmacy that had what we needed in the quantity we needed. The PIA was if no pharmacy had enough and they had to order, the orders for the Sch II are done once per week and you could be delayed up to a week (you can't take a partial fill 'cause then you lose the remainder since the shorted quantity can't be 'made up.' That worked fine though in that if we got a script just before we left and one the day we got back, we only needed to go through this 4 times in a 6 month period.
With the new ability to carry a current 30 day Rx plus 2 post dated scripts for 2 add'l 30 days supplies, 90 days can be covered without much in the way of complications (provided you can find a pharmacist to fill Sch II's for a transient). However, regs are more stringent on actual physical doctor's visits to obtain scripts. So now we can't get the next 90 days worth of scripts Fed Ex'd to us cause a doctor's visit is required. DW now has to fly back to see the doctor every 3 months +/- to get her new scripts.
Tony & Karen - Delaware also has a quirk in their law (we haven't been there in 9 yrs & I don't remember exactly how it affected us nor if it still is in effect.) Also IL has a 7 or 8 day 'current Rx date' restriction for narcotics which means that, in past years before the Nov '07 change, if you had to get a new script sent to you by your doc (1 or more days) and then, if the pharmacy didn't have enough and had to order (up to 7 days), you could easily end up with a script that was 8, 9 or more days old and under IL law, was then too old to be filled. ND requires their pharmacies to be free standing pharmacies so if you had your profile in a chain pharmacy such as Walmart or Target, those type of chains couldn't have a pharmacy in their stores and you might be forced to deal with a pharmacy that doesn't have a history/profile on you making it difficult to get some types of Rx's filled.
Don't think that it is a weird law, just was not written for people that pass thru the state. You have to remember that some people sell their rx after they pick it up.
Now you're in W NYS so this doesn't apply to you - but NY's 'weird law', as you call it, doesn't prohibit those other New Yorkers from selling their Rx after they pick them up since NY pharmacy regs don't cancel out refills of NY scripts filled in NY. They cancel out the scripts of travelers that pass through or vacation in NY or scripts that New Yorkers get from out of state. Guess NY pharmacy board thinks that NY doctor's are great but doctors we select from other states are only good for one fill and not even worthy of having their scripts then passed on to another state. We've had Rx's filled in at least 40 of our states in the past 10 yrs of wandering and NY is the only one with this particular aberration. Anecdotally that makes it weird.
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