There’s many different brands of Rx prenatal vitamins, both name brand and generic. How does the pharmacist know which one to fill based on such a vague Rx? Eeny, meeny, miny, moe?
This is what happened several years ago and I mailed the Rx to my mail order pharmacy and was mailed generic prenatal vitamins. No questions asked of me. I’m curious how they were chosen. I wasn’t informed enough at the time to compare ingredients or even know that there were several options. If there’s a better sub to ask this question please let me know. Thanks!
In: Other
Depends on the country, but generally the cheapest brand that contains folic acid, iron, calcium and Vitamin D.*
That’s pretty much what generic prenatal vitamin pills contain and there isn’t much benefit of going for a more expensive brand if that’s what you need. If your doctor wanted something on top of that (like more vitamin A, B, E or more minerals like Zinc or Iodine) they would probably have been more specific on the Rx about what type of prenatal vitamins you should get.
*Maybe Vitamin C as well. You might not need extra Vitamin C, but it’s hard to overdose on it since the upper limit of “uh, maybe you shouldn’t eat that much” is over 16 times Recommended Daily Intake. 2000 mg vs the 120mg RDI).
In the US it is often up to the insurance company. Some insurance companies will only cover generic, some will only cover name brand.
If they don’t have a requirement one way or the other I think the default is generally whatever is going to be most cost effective to the patient.
Lol almost all prenatal vitamins have the same ingredients. If you dont trust the people with the education and experience of handling pharmaceuticals to fill your prescription without a full consult with you then maybe you should just go get them yourself off the shelf. Problem solved.
The other commenter explained this perfectly, and I would just like to add that your doctor probably wrote it as a prescription so that your insurance could cover it. If you would personally prefer a more comprehensive pre natal vitamin regiment, you’re welcome to buy them yourself as well.
Former pharmacy tech of 6 years here.
If the MD wrote just “prenantal vitamin” I would just pick one that I knew wasn’t a horse pill, was regularly in stock, and was generally covered by insurance.
If the MD specified a brand and allowed for generics then I could only substitute for generics that were equivalent to the brand name. In instances when this was a problem I would call the doctor to okay a switch to another brand. I’ve never had a doctor or nurse care about switching and many were annoyed that I wasted their time with the question.
They are all generally the same vitamins just with slightly different ingredient amounts, so no one really cares as long as you are taking something. All prescription drugs are made with FDA oversight so there is a lot less worry about manufacturer quality control than there can be with OTC products so there isn’t really a worry about safety either.
But yeah the prenatal vitamin you are on was probably arbitrarily chosen by a pharmacy tech or pharmacist.
Edit: There was one prenatal with a stool softner in it that didn’t get substituted or picked randomly.
To me, it would seem that the generic *must* contain the same vitamins in the same dosage to be interchangeable.
If the doctor orders Motrin 600 mg, which is a prescription dose, then the pharmacist can give me ibuprofen 600 mg because it is the same formulated medication and dosage.
The problem with generics is that sometimes they have a “filler” (like the coating or an inert ingredient) that negatively affects the patient. This happened to me with a prescription drug, and the pharmacist simply tried another brand of generic which worked for me without making me sick.
But to be interchangeable, I would think it must be the same medications (vitamins) and doses.
Former retail pharmacist here. Doctors do this because insurances do not cover all prenatals so they trust us to decide what’s best according to the patients’ formulary. How do we know this? Literally by experience from dealing with so many types of insurances daily. For example, where I’m from, our state insurance is called CALOPTIMA, I know that they will cover A, B, or C and as long as one of these genetics contain all the vitamins the brand name has, I will select the one we have in stock. Other patients have regular insurance and say if their insurance covers A, B, C, D, and E, then I would dispense whichever has the cheapest copay because their efficacy is comparable. If a pharmacist is not as experienced, when a claim is rejected by the insurance, they usually tell you which one is covered in the rejection so the pharmacist will change the med, annotate it on the Rx, and run it through again for it to be covered by the insurance. Most of the pharmacists I’ve worked with are great at what they do so you can trust them to select the right medication for you. I’m in oncology now and although my work is a little more rewarding, I do miss patient interactions and being able to help people (within my scope of practice) when they can’t go see their doctors or if their problems are minor medical problems that we can help with!
Latest Answers