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What to ask when a pharmacy cannot fill it
Ten questions, in the order worth asking them. Written to be used standing at a counter or sitting in a car with a phone in your hand — so it is short, and the one question that works most often is marked.
Before you call
Three minutes here saves the whole call.
Know the exact product
Drug, strength, and form — a 20 mg tablet is a different product from a 20 mg capsule. Your label has all three.
Get the manufacturers currently shipping
Open this site’s page for your strength and note one or two names and their NDC codes.
Have your prescriber’s number ready
Several of the answers below end with calling them, and you will save a step.
On the call
Ask for a specific product, not for the drug in general. The answer you get back is different.
Ask about a specific manufacturer, not the drug in general
“Do you have amphetamine salts 20 mg from Teva, NDC 0555-0973-02?” gets a more precise answer than “do you have Adderall.”
If they do not have it, ask whether they can order that NDC
A pharmacy can sometimes order a listed product even when the shelf is empty.
The one that works most oftenAsk when their next wholesaler delivery arrives
A date is more actionable than a no.
Ask whether a different strength is available
Do not decide this yourself — write down what they have and take it to your prescriber, because a different strength needs a new prescription.
When the answer is no everywhere
At some point more calls stop helping. This is roughly where that line sits.
Stop calling and call the prescriber
Once three or four pharmacies say no, the bottleneck is the prescription, not the search. Bring the list of what nearby pharmacies actually have.
Ask about a partial fill
Many states allow one for Schedule II medications, which can bridge a gap.
Remember the script may not transfer
For Schedule II, most states require a new prescription sent to the new pharmacy — so confirm the pharmacy has the product before the prescription is moved.
None of this is medical advice. It is a list of questions, not recommendations about your treatment. Every decision about what you take, and in what dose, belongs to you and your prescriber.
Know before you call
Step 2 is the one people skip, and it is the one that makes the call work. Every product page here lists the manufacturers currently reporting they are shipping that exact strength, with the package code to read down the phone.
Built from the FDA drug shortage database, fetched 2026-08-26; the feed’s own last update was 2026-08-25. Snapshot 021d4dfd5d742d95. You can check us against the FDA source, and read what we get wrong.