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!
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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.
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