Tips for How Best to Organize Medications
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Q. What's a good way to keep track of all the meds I take?
A. The first thing to try is a daily pill organizer that has two rows, one for daytime and one for nighttime. Take it to your pharmacist and ask her to organize your medications for you. This works best if your regimen is four or fewer drugs.
Certain independent pharmacies and a handful of CVS, Rite Aid, Target, and Walgreens pharmacies offer a "blister pack" service, which can be useful for more complex drug regimens. The pharmacy presorts medications into single-use, plastic packages by the time of day you should take the drugs.
Using blister packs is thought to cut down on errors such as taking the wrong drug or taking it at the wrong time. Taking five or more medications increases your risk of making this kind of mistake, according to research published in the Journal of Gerontological Nursing.
Another option is an online pharmacy called PillPack. PillPack fills prescriptions into plastic blister packs at no cost. You pay your normal 30-day co-pay. Medication arrives in the mail sorted and sealed into individual packets with the drug’s name and instructions printed on the outside. The service coordinates with your insurance company, syncing up multiple prescriptions so that they all arrive at the same time.
"Having your medications presorted means no more fumbling with pill bottles or confusing instructions," says Lisa Gill, deputy editor of Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs.
PillPack takes manufacturer co-pay discount coupons and other drug discount coupons, and can ship to every state except Hawaii. But it doesn’t fill prescriptions for certain medications considered more likely to cause dependence, such as Adderall and Vicodin.
For related information, check CR Best Buy Drugs, plus you can read more about why it matter where you store prescriptions and best way to protect kids from accidental drug poisoning.
Editor's Note: This article also appeared in the July 2017 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.
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