Florida checks
Check the pharmacy behind the prescription
Ask which pharmacy will fill it. For medicine made to order, called compounded medicine, ask who will actually make it too.
Start with the state pharmacy record
Florida’s pharmacy board licenses pharmacies and pharmacists.
Use the state’s free licence search. To find a pharmacy, choose ‘Establishments’. That is the search option for a business, rather than a person.
Ask for the full pharmacy name and permit number. Match both to the state record.
Mail and internet routes have different permits
Usually, a pharmacy outside Florida that mails dispensed medicine here must be on Florida’s pharmacy register.
The board may let a pharmacy skip registration if it sends only occasional, separate orders to Florida.
If a pharmacy says this exception applies, ask for the board’s decision allowing it. A pharmacy’s own assurance does not show that the board granted the exception.
Online pharmacies need a different Florida permit: an Internet pharmacy permit. They must name a licensed pharmacist in charge.
The rules also require a free pharmacist contact line on the container label.
A licence check is a beginning
FDA, the US medicine review agency, points readers to state pharmacy records. A listed licence does not prove a pharmacy fills prescriptions as it ought to.
FDA has seen labels naming pharmacies that do not exist. It has also seen labels naming real pharmacies that did not make the medicine.
Use the name on the label as well as the name supplied before the prescription. Ask about any difference.