Existing law, the Pharmacy Law, establishes, in the Department of Consumer Affairs, the California State Board of Pharmacy to license and regulate the practice of pharmacy.

Existing law authorizes a physician and surgeon, nurse practitioner, registered nurse, and specified other health care practitioners acting within the scope of their practice to use a self-screening tool to identify patient risk factors for the use of self-administered hormonal contraceptives by a patient and, after examination, to prescribe, furnish, or dispense self-administered hormonal contraceptives to the patient.

This bill would, instead, make those provisions applicable to contraceptives.

Existing law authorizes a pharmacist to furnish self-administered hormonal contraceptives in accordance with standardized procedures or protocols developed and approved by both the California State Board of Pharmacy and the Medical Board of California, in consultation with specified other entities.

This bill would authorize a pharmacist to also furnish federal Food and Drug Administration-approved nonhormonal contraceptives in accordance with those standardized procedures or protocols. The bill would require a pharmacist, for each federal Food and Drug Administration-approved nonhormonal contraceptives initiated, to provide the recipient with a standardized fact sheet, as specified.

Existing law prohibits a pharmacist, pharmacist’s employer, or pharmacist’s agent from directly charging a patient a separate consultation fee for emergency contraception drug therapy services and requires the pharmacist to disclose the total retail price of the emergency contraception drug therapy. Existing law makes those provisions inoperative for dedicated emergency contraception drugs if these drugs are reclassified as over-the-counter products by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

This bill would delete those provisions.

Existing law requires a pharmacist to dispense, at a patient’s request, up to a 12-month supply of an FDA-approved, self-administered hormonal contraceptive.

This bill would, instead, make those provisions applicable to contraceptives.

This bill would make related conforming changes.