How do you find your NHS prescription pre-pay history (is it even possible)?

B0bbyEwing

Earlier this year I bought a 3 month prescription pre-pay because it was working out cheaper. Some time passed & then I did the same again.

Could I tell you the dates? Not a chance. That's why I'm here.

Today I received a letter saying that basically I picked up a prescription some time between the end of April & first few days of June (yeah nice one! Very helpful, not!). I would've thought the super-duper system could actually pinpoint THE date but hey ho.

Thing is, I'm not sure either way, whether I was still on the prepay, whether I was off the prepay or whether I ordered my repeat on the prepay but picked it up after it had passed. 

Which brings a side question - let's assume mine is coming to an end soon. So today is 16 Aug, let's say I order today but my prepay ends next Friday, 22 Aug. I order it 16, say it gets approved 19, prepay expires 22 & I go to pick it up 23Aug. Is that covered or not?

But yeah, how do I find out whether I had an active prepay at that time?

And since they've given a stupidly wide span of dates, say it expired mid-May. How am I supposed to know whether that covered this collection or not?

swingaloo

Did you buy it online? You would have paid by card so does the amount not appear on your bank statement.

singhini

having looked at my own documentation, it looks like they email you a copy of the certificate (and on the certificate it would display your name, certificate number and both the start and end date)

[ive assumed you bought it online]

B0bbyEwing

Yeah it's always done online.

Thanks for the replies. I generally don't delete my emails although there's always a chance I've deleted it while binning general inbox rubbish. 

I've checked my emails & based on what's in my inbox there's no pre-pay that covers the dates given.

I've paid for a couple prescriptions during the dates given (I only know that as I keep a log of spends).

So my issue here now is this - 

I only have their word for it and I also have no way of saying yes I did or no I didn't pick something up. They seem to operate like my work - coming to you asking "do you remember what you did on this date 10 months ago". Well no I don't funnily enough. 

So I'm supposed to pay up just because they say I should? Systems can & do go wrong so what's to say I picked something up & didn't pay in the timeframe they've given?

I know I'm just nobody to you guys (by that I mean you don't know me) but I'm not a shady person. There's a market stall I'll often go to & recently after leaving the stall with my purchase, I went to go on my phone & it said payment declined. I went back to the stall, queued up & told them about it. They said they knew & because I go so often they weren't worried about it. I insisted on paying though. Point being, if I owe & know I owe then I pay. So in this case if they'd have given me my prescription & said see you later, I'd have said hang on are you not charging me?

Which makes me wonder if this is some kind of system error I'm being penalised for.

singhini

Is asking the pharmacy an option? (when i collect my prescriptions i go to the same pharmacy and i had to show them my certificate and they entered the details onto their computer system).

What i don't know is how much information do they hold i.e. after my first certificate expired, i renewed it and then gave the pharmacy the new details (but can't be sure if their computer remembers the details of all the certificates  or just the latest details). 

GrubbyGirl_2

I don't know the answer to your question but have you looked on the NHS app to see of there is anything on there that tells you?

Bossyboots

My pharmacist told me that it is the date of collection from him and not the date of ordering or him filling the script that counts. I could have been caught out one time not knowing this but my pharmacist always knows when pre-payments are running out.

B0bbyEwing

singhini said:

Is asking the pharmacy an option? (when i collect my prescriptions i go to the same pharmacy and i had to show them my certificate and they entered the details onto their computer system).

What i don't know is how much information do they hold i.e. after my first certificate expired, i renewed it and then gave the pharmacy the new details (but can't be sure if their computer remembers the details of all the certificates  or just the latest details). 

Sure it's an option but I imagine they'll be much like me when I'm asked about a stupidly wide ranging date - as in they'll just say we've no idea.

GrubbyGirl_2 said:

I don't know the answer to your question but have you looked on the NHS app to see of there is anything on there that tells you?

To be honest, no I haven't. The reason being - I don't imagine in their FAQs they'll have something along the lines of "what if you think we've made a mistake when we say you owe us money" because they'll just expect everyone to nod and go yes sir. 

What's annoyed me the most is that I don't accept any excuse for them not being able to give me the precise date. It could save a lot of messing around. For example, I could go & do the leg work now & find out was it even possible I could've gone to the pharmacy that day or was I at work. 

But no, now I have to make a phone call which will involve being on hold for some ridiculous amount of time, all using up my break time at work, probably overrunning it & then getting moaned at I'm taking more time than I'm due.

Bossyboots said:

My pharmacist told me that it is the date of collection from him and not the date of ordering or him filling the script that counts. I could have been caught out one time not knowing this but my pharmacist always knows when pre-payments are running out.

That's an interesting one then.

After posting this I actually recall asking someone at my old pharmacy ages ago. They said that it just needs to be dispensed ready for collection. If it's dispensed before the end date then it doesn't matter if I collect after the end date it will come under the prepay.

Then I asked the person I saw yesterday who clearly didn't know what the answer was (which I can accept) but then they started guessing & saying I just need to order it before the end date. 

And now we have what you've been told.

So basically all 3 possible options have been put forward by 3 different people as THE answer. 

Now I'm going to say yesterday's person was incorrect as it sounds the least likely to be true. Yours is a play-safe & my original one may or may not be correct.