Precription Terminology Questions

JSK 252

Im a 2nd year pharmacy student and was wondering could anybody help me out with the following questions with regard to hospital prescriptions because I cant seem to find any information about them.

1. In what way is a hospital discharge prescription different from a community prescription?

2. For how long is a hospital prescription valid?

3. Does the patient have to pay for it?

4. What is the hospital emergency prescription scheme?

5. Can every hospital issue a hospital emergency prescription?

6. How much medication can be supplied under the hospital emergency scheme?

Thanks.;)

bleg

1. Only 7 days worth of meds can be supplied. No Controlled Drugs can be dispensed. Physically, they are completely different.

2. For how long is a hospital prescription valid? 6 months I think, though I'm not too sure

3. Does the patient have to pay for it? Not if they have a medical card.

4. What is the hospital emergency prescription scheme? This is the refund mechanism in place for pharmacies for patients with a medical card. It requires a copy of the hospital prescription to be attached.

5. Can every hospital issue a hospital emergency prescription? I would think so.

6. How much medication can be supplied under the hospital emergency scheme? 7 days

pampootie

I'd add to that-

1. 7 days can be supplied if its for a medical card patient. For a private patient, it's really treated like a normal script, i.e valid for up to six months (or whatever duration is specified)

2. Valid for six months for a private patient, but for a medical card patient, technically they need to bring it in to you within 24 hours of being written to avail of the Hospital Emergency Scheme. I say technically because there's a bit of a grey area around weekends etc, I've never had any problems being reimbursed for a Hosp Emergency script that was written, say, on a Friday night and dispensed on a Sunday.

3. Again private pay as per a normal script. Medical card patients will pay 50c per item on the script. This is for a weeks supply, they then go to their GP, get the items written on a normal GMS script, come back to me and I have to charge them 50c per item again for the remainder of the month. There's a rant there but I'll save it for another thread.

4. The hospital emergency scheme happens when a medical card patient is discharged with a hospital prescription, which is not written on the usual GMS or GMS repeat prescription forms. It allows them to go to their pharmacy and recieve a 7 day supply of their medication. As mentioned above, they're really supposed to go straight away. The pharmacy will dispense 7 days, and give the patient a photocopy of the prescription to take to their doctor. Their Dr will then rewrite the remainder of the prescription on a normal GMS script.

5. No. Prescriptions from private hospitals and clinics will not be paid for. This is a nightmare at the start when you're not sure which hospitals are public and which are private. I remember once ringing a hospital to ask which they were to be told "Oh, we're both, depends on the clinic and doctor they saw, we've no way of answering that!"

6. 7 days only.

If you can get your hands on an IPU diary it's quite helpful for this kind of stuff!

JSK 252

bleg, cheers for that lad. You are a UCC graduate if Im not mistaken? Thanks for that.

pampootie, thanks for adding on extra details of what bleg said. Greatly appreciated. Yup I will try and get my hands on an IPU diary if I can, I heard alright that its a useful reference source.