The problem is how things are billed in a hospital. Medication costs in the hospital are extra high, because the cost of having a nurse administer the medication is built into the price of the drug. And drugs in the hospital are not labeled with the required information that has to be on an outpatient prescription. 

While relabeling them for outpatient use can be done, the billing thing remains a problem - it's considered to be insurance fraud because the hospital is billing for nursing time that's not used. On the other hand, if the patient is going home before the bulk container is used, the insurance company is having a lot of money there...

As a pharmacist sitting in my pharmacy, I'm not always going to know if you threw that bulk inhaler away at discharge, or if you made sure the patient knows how to use it and it disappeared in the wink of an eye. But if you call me and ask me, that's the answer I have to give you. 

Laura Calmon Block, PharmD, CLC
Cell (404) 402-2615
I didn't give you the gift of life.  Life gave me the gift of you.

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