For those living in the state of Washington, there are some recent news that might help cure some of your coronavirus woes. If you are having problems filling your prescriptions because of the following, try asking your friendly local pharmacist to help:
- The Insurance Commissioner issued an emergency order to Washington state health insurers to allow a one-time early refill for prescription drugs. But before you call your local pharmacy, make sure to check with your health plan whether or not your prescriptions (and drug plan) is included in this emergency order.
- It was recently announced by the Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission that rule WAC 246-869-105 is in effect which allows a pharmacist to provide an emergency refill of an expired prescription for a 3 day supply for non-maintenance medications and a thirty-day supply for a maintenance medication if the pharmacist is unable to obtain refill authorization from the prescriber.
In general, there might be some lag time between these announcements and and the participation of your local pharmacy, so it is always good to work collaboratively with your pharmacy and insurance to figure things out. Hope this helps someone and don’t forget to wash your hands!
TheCuriousPharmacist 