Prescription Policies and Information

Prescriptions and refills will be handled at scheduled office visits and enough medicine will be prescribed to last at least until the patient’s next appointment. Since we expect to fill prescriptions at the office visit, running out may be a signal that it is time to call our office to schedule an appointment. We request patients be seen annually for routine medication refills. If your prescription insurance plan requires a prior authorization for a medication, you will be responsible for obtaining a Prior Authorization Form from your insurance company for your physician to complete.  While our office staff and physicians do their best to help patients obtain their maximum prescription benefits, insurance plans, including drug coverage plans, are a contract between the patient and the patient's insurance company. 

If you need to change pharmacies or change your prescription to mail order, the law in the State of Ohio permits non-expired prescriptions to be transferred to the new pharmacy without charge or interruption. In the case of most mail order pharmacies, they disregard this provision and require prescriptions to be re-written. In the event that this is preferred by the patient BEFORE their next routine visit, the patient has a couple of choices:

1. Make an appointment to see the doctor for repeat refills
2. Wait for their next regular visit to change pharmacies
3. Pay a fee for the patient's physician to review their medical records and re-write the prescription - which will then need to be picked up at the office.  Lost prescriptions for controlled medications (such as pain medications, sleeping aides, etc.) will not be replaced.

We discourage the practice of calling in prescriptions as it does not allow the patient or the doctor to re-evaluate the appropriateness of the prescription, and follow the condition for which the medication has been prescribed. We do not accept calls from pharmacies to refill medications. When pharmacies call us, we request contact directly with the patient.