Confirm Your Prescription When Changing Pharmacies

Published June 2, 2025

We received a report from a person who had to switch pharmacies because their health insurance changed. The pharmacy they had been using was no longer covered under their new insurance plan. They were able to transfer all of their prescriptions to the new pharmacy and went to pick up a refill for medicine used to treat their attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They did not speak with the pharmacist since this was not anew medicine, just a refill.

The medicine was Wellbutrin XL (bupropion), and they took 300 mg once a day using two 150 mg tablets for each dose. When they went to take their first dose from the medicine vial that was dispensed from the new pharmacy, they realized the medicine looked different. The tablets seemed larger than usual. They read the label on the vial and saw that the prescription had changed! Each tablet contained 300 mg. So, if they took two tablets, which they normally did, they would have taken 600 mg of Wellbutrin – twice the dose!

This is not the first report we have received about issues with transferring prescriptions from one pharmacy to another. For example, we previously wrote about an error that happened when a woman moved to a different state. She had all of her prescriptions transferred to a pharmacy near her new home. However, the new pharmacy mistakenly filled a prescription for a medicine that her doctor had stopped a few months earlier. Other cases have been reported in which certain medicines were missed when prescriptions were transferred to the new pharmacy.

Here’s what you can do: To help prevent errors when transferring prescriptions from one pharmacy to another, consider the following recommendations.

• Make sure your list of medicines is up to date. Before filling any prescriptions at the new pharmacy, make sure they know your allergies and have your current list of medicines, doses, and how you take them. Ask if your prescriptions have been transferred from your old pharmacy.
• When picking up prescriptions at the new pharmacy, be sure to ask to speak to the pharmacist so you can:
  • check the medicine when you pick it up to make sure it is correct (right drug, right, dose, right directions)
  • make sure your name is on the label
  • ask questions if anything looks different or does not seem right