The Pharmacy Pickup Plan: Ask the Hours, the Delivery Option, and the Refill Process Before You Leave the Hospital

The discharge prescriptions are the part of the day that most often slips. The hospital says the prescriptions are sent, the family assumes they will be ready, and then the counter closes at an hour nobody checked. This article is about the phone calls that prevent that. Make them before the car pulls out, not from the parking lot.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

Ask where the prescriptions are going

Ask the hospital which pharmacy is receiving the discharge prescriptions. Ask whether they are ready when you leave or whether they need a separate trip. Ask whether any prescriptions are for medicines the person already had at home, and whether any are new. Write the answer on your sheet beside the name of the pharmacy. Do not assume the pharmacy you use for everything else is the one that has them.

Ask about hours and delivery

Ask the pharmacy for its hours on the day you go home and the day after. Weekend and holiday hours are often different from weekday hours, so check on the pharmacy's own phone line rather than a website you cannot confirm. Ask whether the pharmacy delivers to the home, what time the delivery cutoff is, and whether there is a fee. Write down the answers. If delivery is not offered, ask which nearby location is open the latest.

Ask about refills

Ask how refills are requested, who asks for them, and how long the pharmacy needs before a refill is due. Ask whether any prescription needs a new order from the doctor before it can be refilled. Ask the pharmacist to show you on the bottle or the printout where the refill information appears. Ask who to call after hours if the pharmacy is closed and a question comes up.

Name who does the pickup

Decide who makes the pickup trip. A family member or a hired helper can do the pickup as an errand. The medicine itself stays with the family, the doctor, and the pharmacist. A helper should not be handed a pill box to fill, a bottle to sort, or a set of doses to hand out. If the household needs help with the medicines themselves, ask the pharmacist and the doctor, not the errand runner, what the setup should be.

Bring one list to the counter

Bring the list of medicines the person was taking before the hospital, the discharge paperwork, and any questions you want to take to the pharmacist. Ask one question at a time. Ask what each medicine is for, how it is to be taken, and what to do if a dose is missed. Write the answers down in the words the pharmacist uses. Those questions go to the pharmacist and the doctor, not to a helper and not to a web search.

Compare two pharmacies on the same questions

If the hospital offers more than one pharmacy, or if you have a choice of a local pharmacy, ask each one the same five questions: hours on the discharge day, delivery, refill process, after-hours phone line, and whether they can transfer a prescription if they are closed. Choose by the answers, not by which one is closest. The local pharmacy that answers the phone is often the one that will be there when the next question comes up.

For the wider list of discharge tasks and who to call, see the Day 0 to Day 14 After Discharge guide. For local options in the area, see Local Help After a Discharge.