The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy® (NABP®) has evaluated more than 10,900 online pharmacies and determined that only 4% are in compliance with state and federal pharmacy law or patient safety and pharmacy practice standards. It is time to learn how to find safe online pharmacies to protect yourself and your loved ones.
What is the Typical Prescription Process?
The typical process for obtaining a prescription medication starts with:- Going to your doctor for your appointment/examination
- Receiving a prescription based upon the doctor's evaluation of your health
- Filling that prescription through a pharmacy
- Picking up the prescribed medication from a licensed pharmacy staffed with a licensed pharmacist who can answer any questions that you may have about your purchase
- Receiving your prescription medication in the mail from a licensed pharmacy with licensed pharmacists who can answer any questions that you may have about your purchase.
Those three steps are necessary for patient safety!
The process for obtaining a medication from a rogue or illegitimate online pharmacy can be very different, and it's critical to understand those differences. Simply put, rogue pharmacies do not follow state and federal pharmacy laws, so the process may look something like:
- Purchasing a prescription medication without a prescription
- Filling out an online questionnaire to obtain a prescription medication
Do you see all of the steps that are missing?
When you rely on an unknown source to supply your medication in a location that you cannot verify, you are putting your health and the health of those that you care for at risk. Legitimate online pharmacies will have a phone number and physical address posted, along with a way to contact a licensed pharmacist to get answers to your questions. Beware of websites that only list an email address as a method of contact. Learn more about how to ensure the safety of your online pharmacy.
.Pharmacy: It's Putting Patient Safety First
Given the issues surrounding rogue online pharmacies, and the hazards that they cause to public health, NABP sought a way to enhance patient safety online. Toward this goal, NABP became the registry for .pharmacy, a new Top-Level Domain (TLD), like .com or .org, to provide consumers around the world with a means for easily identifying safe online pharmacies. As the official registry for .pharmacy, NABP will only grant the use of .pharmacy to legitimate website operators that adhere to pharmacy laws in the jurisdictions in which they are based and in which their patients and customers reside.
Avella Specialty Pharmacy is proud to be one of the first pharmacies approved to use the .pharmacy domain name. We invite you to learn more about the .pharmacy domain and why avella.pharmacy is an important distinction.
