Refill, renew, and print prescriptions
Everything you need to prescribe, refill, renew, and print medications for a patient.
You can prescribe a new medication, refill an active prescription, renew an expired or used-up one, and print one or many labels at once - all from a client's record, with your clinic's stock checked before you confirm.
How this helps your role
DVMs: Renewing a prescription is no longer a from-scratch rebuild - review, confirm, and move on without losing clinical control over what gets changed.
Vet Techs: Refills from the Health Card apply your practice's default template automatically, so there's no template hunting mid-appointment.
CSR/Front Desk: A routine refill with no changes is a single Confirm - no permissions confusion, no need to pull in a DVM.
Pharmacy/Fulfillment: Stock is checked before you commit, so you get fewer canceled or redone labels, and Bulk Print turns a stack of prescriptions into one action.
Prescribe a new medication
Open the client's record and click Add Record, or use Quick Actions for faster access.
In the Plan section, click Medications to expand the tab.
Search for the medication you want to add. You can also add it through the Plan section's product search.
Set the medication details: Type (In-house or External), Expiration (defaults to one year from the prescription date), Number of Refills, Quantity Dispensed, and Prescribing Doctor.
Review the Label Text - it's pre-filled from your admin's default, but you can edit it.
Add any Internal Notes - private, for your team only.
Click Confirm. The prescription moves to the Active section.
Note: In-house prescriptions and refills adjust your stock and appear in Billing and on the invoice. External prescriptions don't affect stock and don't appear on the invoice.
Active prescriptions
A prescription stays Active as long as its expiration date hasn't passed and nobody has manually marked it Inactive, even after it runs out of refills. To mark one Inactive yourself, for example, if the medication didn't work out, go to the Health Card's Medications tab and change its status.
Note: Renew marks the previous prescription Inactive automatically - you don't need this step for prescriptions you renew.
Refill an active prescription
Refill works from two places, and which one you use decides whether a template gets applied.
From the Health Card, click Refill on a medication row with refills remaining. This opens a new record for the refill, with your practice's default template applied automatically (or the manual template picker, if no default is set).
From within a record you already have open, click Refill directly on the medication row. Since the record already exists, no template applies here - the medication entry expands in place.
If you have Modify permission, edit quantity, refills, provider, label, directions, notes, or Type (In-house/External) as needed. The product itself is always locked, even with Modify permission. Without Modify permission, only Internal Notes is editable.
Click Confirm. If you made no edits, it's logged as Refill as-is. Any edit is logged as Modified, and a Modified label appears on the prescription row. The product is added to Billing automatically.
Each refill nests under its original prescription - expand it to see the label and internal notes for that specific refill. You can only edit or delete a refill from the record it was created in.
Note: If the quantity you enter exceeds available stock, Confirm is disabled until you resolve it - see Check stock before you confirm below.
Renew an expired or used-up prescription
Renew replaces a prescription that's expired or has no refills left - it's not available otherwise. It's only available to DVMs or staff with authorized permission - everyone else won't see the button. Like Refill, it works from two places:
From the Health Card, click Renew on a prescription that's expired or has no refills remaining. This opens a new record, pre-filled from the previous prescription, with your practice's default template applied automatically (or the manual template picker, if no default is set).
From within a record you already have open, click Renew directly on the medication row. Since the record already exists, no template applies here.
Every field is editable except the product, which stays locked.
Click Confirm. This automatically marks the previous prescription Inactive, creates a new linked prescription so you can trace the chain, and adds the new prescription to Billing.
Note: The default template only applies when Renew is triggered from the Health Card, not from within an existing record. Renew never deletes the previous prescription - it only marks it Inactive, so the deletion rules below don't come into play unless you delete an entry directly.
Deleting a prescription
You can delete a prescription, refill, or renewal - in-house or external - only when all of these are true:
Matching record: the delete icon only appears in the record where that specific entry was created, including a new record opened via a Health Card Refill or Renew.
Sale status: the associated sale isn't closed.
No returns: no returns have been processed against it.
Note: If a prescription has refills, delete the refills first - you can't delete the original prescription while refills still exist on it. This applies to deletion only; Renew's automatic Inactive status is a separate mechanism and doesn't trigger this rule.
Print a script or label
For external prescriptions, click the printer icon to open the Prescription details preview, showing the medication name, quantity, refill count, prescribing doctor's signature, and label instructions. From there you can:
Click Email document to send the script to the client's email on file - it's logged automatically in the client's communication history.
Click the download icon to save it to your device.
Click the print icon to print it directly.
The same options are available for refill and renewal scripts. To use a custom prescription form instead of the default, set one up under Administration > Certificates and Forms, then pick it from the dropdown next to the printer icon.
For in-house medications, print the label directly - see label printer integration for that workflow. For non-prescription products, use the Recommendations tab to find and print labels.
Note: Email document is only available for external prescriptions.
Print multiple labels at once (Bulk Print)
From the client's Health Card, open the Medications tab.
Click Bulk Print. Checkboxes appear next to eligible prescriptions.
Select the prescriptions to print. In-house and External can't be selected in the same batch - the UI blocks a mixed selection with a tooltip.
Click Print Labels, or Cancel to exit without printing.
Note: Bulk Print is scoped to this record's prescriptions - historical rows aren't included. Single print is still available.
Check stock before you confirm
Stock Validation applies to Refill, Renew, and new prescriptions - not to External prescriptions. Available stock shows as a hint under the quantity field. If the quantity you enter exceeds available stock, the hint turns red with an explanatory tooltip and Confirm is disabled until you adjust it. Your other form data is preserved while you fix the quantity.
See who changed what (Audit History)
Click the clock icon on any medication row.
Review the entry list: Created, Refilled, Modified & Refilled, Renewed, or Inactivated, each with the staff member, date, and an In-house/External badge.
Click the print icon on an entry (unavailable on Inactivated entries) to print that version, or the record link to open where it happened.
Note: Audit History shows the final values at each stage (Original, Refill, Renew) - it doesn't log every intermediate edit before you confirm.
Set a default template for Refill and Renew
An admin can set one practice-level SOAP template as the default. It applies only when Refill or Renew is triggered from the Health Card, since that's the only path that opens a new record - triggering from within an existing record skips the template entirely.
Go to Clinical Settings > SOAP Templates.
Choose the template you want applied to Refill and Renew, and set it as the default.
Note: If no default is set, the Health Card path falls back to manual template selection. The default template doesn't apply to Bulk Print, and setting it doesn't require a separate permission - anyone with access to SOAP Templates can set it.
View all prescriptions at a glance
The Health Card's Medications tab lists every current and past prescription and refill for the patient, with its date, prescribing doctor, refill status, and directions/notes. Inactive prescriptions sit at the bottom of the list.
Two icons tell you how an entry was added:
A clipboard icon means it came from a record - click it to jump to that record.
An edit icon means it was added manually from the Health Card - see Add Historical/External Patient Medications for that flow.
What this doesn't cover
Medication workflow statuses or a dedicated medications dashboard
An approval or countersign step on Renew
Client-facing refill or renew actions
Per-user template preferences - one practice-level default only
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Can I edit a prescription directly?
Not the original prescription. Use Refill (if it has refills remaining) or Renew (if it's expired or has none left) - the product itself always stays locked.
Why is the Renew button hidden on some prescriptions?
Renew only appears for authorized staff (DVM or equivalent permission) on prescriptions that are expired or have zero refills remaining.
Why can't I select in-house and external prescriptions together in Bulk Print?
They print differently, so a batch can only contain one type at a time. Print them in two batches.
What can I edit if I don't have Modify permission?
Only the Internal Notes field. Quantity, refills, Type, and the other fields stay locked until an authorized user opens it.
Does Audit History show every edit before I confirm?
No. It records the final values at each stage, not every change made before you click Confirm.
Why didn't my default template apply?
The default template only applies on Refill or Renew triggered from the Health Card. Triggering either action from within an existing record skips it, since that record already has its own structure.
Why can't I delete this prescription?
Check three things: you're viewing the record it was created in, its sale isn't closed, and no returns have been processed against it. If it has refills, delete those first.