Substitutions can be a confusing topic for some pharmacies. As many of you will know, unless a pharmacy is based in Victoria, providing a substitution for a patient without aquiring a new script is essentially impossible.
There are 2 ways to approach a substitution request from a patient:
1) Explain to the patient that your pharmacy is unable to offer substitutions, but another pharmacy may be able to. Then, ask them if they would like you to transfer your order to another pharmacy that can assist.
Before offering this option to a patient, you should check 2 things on their script/s:
1) That the script does not stipulate that substitutions are NOT allowed
2) That the "Substitution not permitted" box is not ticked.
Providing that these two conditions are present on the patients script, certain Victorian pharmacies should be able to provide some substitution options to this patient.
2) Contacting their prescribing to ask for a substitution:
In these cases, it is up to the pharmacy to reach out to the patients original prescriber, and ask them if a substitution could be provided. This is often the best approach if the original product prescribed is out of stock or discontinued. To increase the probability of a practitioner working with you on the substitution request, we encourage pharmacies to reach out with the below information.
Prescriber’s name
Patient’s name
Product that’s OOS
Suggested substitutions
How many total units are left (ie 1 + 2 repeats = 3)
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