Procurement, Storage, Inventory, Returns, Recalls, and Distribution
Procurement
Buy only from licensed, authorized trading partners: Illinois-licensed wholesale distributors, manufacturers, or another licensed pharmacy under limited conditions. Under DSCSA, verify licensure, accept only serialized product with transaction information, history, and statements, and know how to handle suspect or illegitimate product: quarantine, investigate, and report to trading partners and FDA.
Storage
Maintain temperature and humidity per label and USP standards; monitor refrigerators and freezers with logs; segregate look-alike/sound-alike products; protect from light and moisture. Assign beyond-use dates to repackaged and compounded products; never dispense expired stock.
Inventory and returns
Controlled substances: initial, biennial, and change-of-registrant inventories. Non-controlled stock: periodic counts sufficient to detect loss. Return expired goods promptly. Non-controlled returns generally follow the wholesaler's credit policy; controlled substances may be returned only to a DEA-registered reverse distributor (CII documented on Form 222 or equivalent). Drugs that left the pharmacy never go back on the shelf.
Recalls
Act by class: Class I requires immediate quarantine and, when product reached patients, notification and retrieval; Class II and III require quarantine and return. Document lot numbers, quantities, dates, and actions taken.
Traps
Buying from a secondary source with a great price; restocking patient returns; forgetting that recalled CII stock still needs documentation; mixing expired and active stock in will-call.
Rule of thumb
If a product cannot be traced to an authorized source, keep it out of the workflow - quarantine, document, and call the supplier before it touches a shelf.