Pharmacy teams are reminded that prescriptions for health products that do not have a drug identification number (DIN), including nutritional supplements, may not show up in the Alberta Electronic Health Record (Netcare).
Pharmacists should always check Netcare when assessing the appropriateness of all prescriptions. Checking Netcare can assist pharmacists in determining whether a patient may be presenting a forged prescription, or if a patient may be “double doctoring” and collecting the same prescription from multiple physicians and/or receiving the same prescription from multiple pharmacies.
However, it is important to be aware that not all prescriptions show up in Netcare. Some health products do not have a drug identification number (DIN) but rather a pseudo-product identification number (PIN). Nutritional supplements such as Ensure® meal replacement drinks are a good example. Although a nutritional product’s pseudo-PIN allows a pharmacy to submit a claim for the item, pseudo-PINs for these items do not get uploaded to Netcare.
For a complete list of health products with a pseudo-PIN, refer to the Alberta Blue Cross Reference Guide for Alberta pharmacies.