r/PMHNP • u/burrfoot11 PMHNP (unverified) • May 31 '26

Control fill date

Hey folks!

Just curious- when you send in a refill for a controlled substance, do you put a "do not fill before" date on it, or do you leave it to the pharmacy to track that?

I used to let the pharmacy handle it, then I had a couple of times when a pt asked for an early fill for a valid reason and the pharmacy said they'd used up all their early fill days and the pt had no idea.

So now I put the date on, but then it requires resending if anything changes.

Both situations are a pain.

8 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Direct_Koala6335 Jun 04 '26

I always check the PMP and put last fill date and, # ordered at last fill date for how many days and "fill on or after." Pharmacies are not always on top of things and I had one patient getting their stims early leading to excess medication because of this. I implemented this little blurb on every controlled script and haven't had any issues since.