The pill and medical cards

Pooh-bah

I have a medical card and went to get the pill two months back,i was given a one month prescription ans was told to come back the next month,which i did. I was then given a three month prescription but when i went to the pharmacy I was told I could only get one month on medical card prescriptions.
One person i've asked said They should have given me it back,and another said I should have got three seperate scripts.
So can anyone tell me exactly what the story is with it?..

RobFowl

On the GMS scheme (Medical card) you are allowed get a repeat prescription of up to 3 months. Only one month at a time will be given out though.
If the prescription is printed out it'll be 3 seperate but postdated ones, if it's written its usually a treble issue one (one sheet on top and carbon copies below).

Kristopherus

RobFowl wrote: »

On the GMS scheme (Medical card) you are allowed get a repeat prescription of up to 3 months. Only one month at a time will be given out though.

And the reason for that is to curb the attempts of some recipients selling on the drugs.

RobFowl

Kristopherus wrote: »

And the reason for that is to curb the attempts of some recipients selling on the drugs.

Reduce waste as well, amazing how many people stockpile medications.

Kurtosis

Just to go into a little more depth about the question, there are 2 types of medical card prescription:

(a) GMS monthly prescriptions which are green forms (with a carbon copy attached) that allow you to get one month's supply
(b) GMS repeat prescriptions which contain 3 monthly prescriptions (orange/brown, blue and pink forms with green carbon copies attached to each).

In the case of (a), once one month's supply has been dispensed, no more can be dispensed from that prescription no matter how many repeats are written on it. One copy is retained by the pharmacy and one is submitted for payment. For (b), after a month is dispensed, the bottom copy of the prescription and its carbon is retained by the pharmacy (again, one copy retained, one submitted for payment), while the orange and blue copies are returned to the patient.

If more three months of medicine is being prescribed, the GP will either give one GMS repeat prescription or three postdated green GMS monthly prescriptions - which option is used is really down to the habit of each GP.

Hope that helps!

RobFowl

penguin88 wrote: »

Just to go into a little more depth about the question, there are 2 types of medical card prescription:

(a) GMS monthly prescriptions which are green forms (with a carbon copy attached) that allow you to get one month's supply
(b) GMS repeat prescriptions which contain 3 monthly prescriptions (orange/brown, blue and pink forms with green carbon copies attached to each).

In the case of (a), once one month's supply has been dispensed, no more can be dispensed from that prescription no matter how many repeats are written on it. One copy is retained by the pharmacy and one is submitted for payment. For (b), after a month is dispensed, the bottom copy of the prescription and its carbon is retained by the pharmacy (again, one copy retained, one submitted for payment), while the orange and blue copies are returned to the patient.

If more three months of medicine is being prescribed, the GP will either give one GMS repeat prescription or three postdated green GMS monthly prescriptions - which option is used is really down to the habit of each GP.

Hope that helps!

The 3/12 repeat and 3/12 postdated tend to be depenent on whether they are computer generated or hand written.
Handwritten ones use the multicolour ones.
Computer generated are all green and are the post dated ones.
Interestingly (Steve Davis style) the computer generated ones are only available in "tractor feed" format which is incredibly out of date, they are the only printer friendly version supplied by the PCRS/HSE.

Kurtosis

RobFowl wrote: »

The 3/12 repeat and 3/12 postdated tend to be depenent on whether they are computer generated or hand written.
Handwritten ones use the multicolour ones.
Computer generated are all green and are the post dated ones.
Interestingly (Steve Davis style) the computer generated ones are only available in "tractor feed" format which is incredibly out of date, they are the only printer friendly version supplies by the PCRS/HSE.

Can't believe I never copped before about the handwritten mutlicoloured and printed green ones...it all makes sense now! Thanks for pointing that out!

angeldelight

I hate the handwritten repeat scripts - not even to do with reading the writing, just that when you get to the bottom one sometimes it looks completely blank because the prescriber hasn't been heavy handed enough!

Also interestingly, just because something is written on a repeat prescription does not mean it should technically be repeated. It should also have the word "repeat" or "3/12" or something similar on it - but in practice this is often not done

Pooh-bah

Thanks pengiun88,thats pretty much cleared it up!
The chemist never gave it back so it must have been a one month one,i've an appointment at ten past nine in the morning so hopefully ill get the right one this time!..

MrCreosote

The whole GMS prescription thing badly needs an update. 30 year old printers getting stuck, carbon copying- it's all so out of date!

And it's a complete joke that somebody can't get 3 or 6 months of the OCP dispensed in one go.

Nonoperational

You get one month at a time but if you want the other two prescriptions back to go somewhere else next time you can. It's as handy to leave it in the pharmacy and give them a ring the day before you need it again and it'll be ready for you.