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Home > Guides > Prescription transfers by fax

Can my pharmacy fax my prescription to another pharmacy?

Yes. Fax is one of the accepted ways for prescriptions to move between pharmacies, alongside phone calls and shared computer systems. You do not fax it yourself: you ask your new pharmacy to pull the prescription, and their pharmacist contacts the old one. Controlled substances in Schedules III through V can only transfer once.

What do I actually have to do?

Less than most people expect. The work runs between the two pharmacists; your job is to give the new pharmacy what they need to start.

Pick the new pharmacy and confirm they accept transfers for your medication.
Hand over the details: your full name and date of birth, the medication name and dose, and the old pharmacy's name, phone number, and the prescription numbers from your bottles.
Give written or recorded permission. Pharmacies cannot start a transfer without your authorization, so the new pharmacy will ask for it.
Wait for confirmation. The new pharmacy contacts the old one, verifies the details, and tells you when the medication is ready. Do not assume it is done until they say so.
Cancel refills at the old pharmacy once the transfer completes, so nothing gets filled in two places.

What information travels with the transfer?

State and provincial rules read like paperwork, but they exist so only one live copy of your prescription exists at a time. The sending pharmacy records the transfer and marks its copy so it cannot be filled again; the receiving pharmacy records where the copy came from. Here is what that looks like in practice:

Detail	Why it is required
Patient name, address, phone	Identity: the receiving pharmacist must be sure of who the prescription belongs to
Medication, dose, directions, refills remaining	Only the remaining refills move; nothing new is created
Date of the original prescription and date of last fill	Proves the prescription is still valid and recent
Pharmacist identities on both ends	The transfer happens pharmacist to pharmacist, and both sides log who was responsible
The sending pharmacy's name and address	Creates the paper trail if anything is questioned later
Invalidation of the original	The sending pharmacy cancels its copy, so the prescription cannot be filled twice

What cannot transfer this way?

Controlled substances have tighter limits. In the US, Schedule III, IV, and V drugs (things like certain sleep aids and pain medications) may transfer between pharmacies only once, no matter how many refills remain; if you switch pharmacies a second time, the prescriber must write a new prescription. Schedule II drugs generally do not transfer at all. A few more edge cases: a prescription with no refills left needs a renewal from the prescriber rather than a transfer; some jurisdictions require extra steps for controlled-substance transfers, like phone contact between the pharmacists; and in British Columbia, pharmacies may not simply forward a faxed prescription they received to another pharmacy. That last rule catches people: a faxed copy is not a transfer, and the college requires the formal transfer process so there is always exactly one valid copy of the prescription.

Related guides

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