Expanding the situations in which medications can be dispensed or delivered from hospitals and health care entities.

More take-home medicines for Washington patients

Beginning July 27, 2025, Washington hospitals can provide prepackaged emergency medicines when patients leave the emergency department. Patients qualify when no community or hospital outpatient pharmacy is available within 15 road miles in Washington, they cannot reasonably reach a local pharmacy, or they need medicine after possible HIV exposure. Prescribers can prescribe these medicines, and practitioners or registered nurses can distribute them. The usual limit is a 48-hour supply. Larger supplies are allowed when pharmacy services will remain unavailable within 48 hours, infection treatment or HIV prevention is needed, or a manufacturer's larger package cannot be changed. Hospitals must set approved medicine lists and procedures, train staff, require pharmacist-supervised preparation, and store medicines securely near the emergency department. They must keep a valid prescription in the patient's record before distribution, and patients must receive counseling. Emergency medicines can include controlled drugs in schedules II–V; separate rules for opioid overdose reversal medicines remain in place. Licensed health care entities must operate under pharmacist supervision or direction and generally serve patients receiving care there. Practitioners in these entities can dispense up to 72 hours of medicine, with similar exceptions using a 72-hour pharmacy-access window. Controlled drugs require annual entity licensing, and single doses delivered for immediate use are excluded from these supply rules. Hospitals generally cannot charge separately from the bundled payment for covered medicines, except as permitted for HIV prevention or opioid overdose reversal treatments. Health care entities also cannot bill separately for medicines provided under their specified limited-dispensing rules.