Date of fill (DOF)
What is the date of fill (DOF)?
DOF refers to the date that a prescription was filled in a pharmacy. It is different than the date a prescription was issued from a provider.
When physicians prescribe medication, the DOF can be used to ensure that a patient starts taking the medication when prescribed and is not asking for refills too soon, which could indicate that they are taking more of the medication than prescribed or are sharing the prescription with someone else.
When looking through a patient’s health history, DOF can also be used to see when they started taking a prescription and can allow the doctor to gauge when patients should see an improvement in their symptoms.
How can pharmacological companies use DOF?
The closer the ratio of issued prescriptions to filled prescriptions is to one, the more patients there are that have their prescriptions filled. This may be because they see the true value in the medication, trust their doctor’s advice, or can afford the prescription. The further from one the ratio is, the more likely the converse of these statements is true.
By looking at the DOF, or more accurately, how many prescriptions evolve to have a DOF assigned, biopharma companies can analyze if there are barriers to accessing their medications that must be addressed.