Medication refills

At my clinic, we have a written protocol that says if the patient has been in for office visit/check up in this amount of time (like 6 months or a year) we can refill the order with out dr signature. If they are asking for refill an they have not been in and its like a month over since the time they were due back we can ok a 30 days supply with an appt reminder. If it is like a year and half or more we deny it per our facility protocol. But if its an inhaler we are to check with the MD before denying it or an epi pen refill ( Im in allergy and asthma). Or if we have a question about anything then we need to get signature/script from MD. Does that help?

I am also a float nurse and quite frankly, some drs want to sign each and every refill request, others don't even want to know about them...unless, the situation is how ella26 described, or if the request is for some (but not all) controlled substances.

at first, I was wary of approving refills for meds w/o a signature, but got over that reluctance when I understood the reasoning behind doing so. does your dr, when writing the original Rx, indicate how many refills are available?

it's unfortunate that you do not have any written protocols to follow. sheeze...at one place I work, the MA approves refills!

sounds like your situation stinks countrygirl. who needs that kind of stress on a daily basis? I wouldn't stand for it for a nanosecond - no job is worth my sanity. hopefully you are in the position to be looking elsewhere for work.