Yes and no. In certain emergency situations, a pharmacist can receive a prescription for a controlled prescription drug from an out-of-province physician that's not on the "approved" form. In these situations, as with any emergency, you should use your professional judgment as to whether you dispense the prescription or not. You can base your decision on the medical condition of the patient and surrounding circumstances.

However, it's your responsibility to make sure the prescription is legitimate and the physician is licensed to practise medicine in Canada. It may be reasonable for some patients, for example those who live close to the B.C./Alberta border, to have a physician in Alberta, and their pharmacy in B.C. In those cases, it may be appropriate to continue to dispense a controlled prescription from outside of B.C.

In most other circumstances, however, if a particular patient makes a habit of asking you to dispense prescriptions for controlled prescription drugs written by out-of-province physicians, you should refer the patient to a physician licensed to practise in B.C. You should not continue to dispense the prescriptions.

Out-of-province nurse practitioners are recognized as prescribers in B.C. But for now, pharmacists in B.C. cannot process the prescriptions under the out-of-province nurse practitioner’s identification number because that category of practitioner has not been added to the PharmaNet system. Depending on the drug and the situation, pharmacists should use their professional judgment to decide if it is appropriate to process a new or transferred nurse practitioner prescription as an emergency supply prescription using the pharmacist’s ID as the prescriber. In all cases, clearly document the situation on the prescription.

You cannot fill the prescription under the optometrist's name because we do not have that category of prescriber in B.C. If the prescription makes sense clinically, one option would be to accept the transfer and based on your professional judgment, fill the prescription as an emergency fill, using your ID as the prescriber. Ensure you document what you did and why you did it.

According to Bylaw 5(39)(3), upon request a pharmacist must transfer prescriptions to another pharmacy licensed in Canada, if the drug or drug product does not contain a narcotic or controlled drug and the transfer occurs between two pharmacists. The Bylaw is silent on transferring a prescription to the U.S. In the interest of positive patient outcomes pharmacists may use professional judgement and decide to transfer a Schedule F prescription to a state that is allowed to accept transfers from Canada. However, once the prescription is transferred out of B.C. the pharmacy is not allowed to transfer the unused refills back to B.C.