We received notice from the California State Board of Pharmacy that changes to the label requirements will be enacted in April, 2015. Here is the email we received:
On January 9, 2015, the Office of Administrative Law approved the board’s rulemaking to amend Title 16 California Code of Regulations Section 1707.5. This section specifies requirements for patient-centered prescription labels. As amended, a pharmacy must print the patient-centered items in a minimum 12-point sans serif font size (where 10-point font had previously been the minimum requirement).
The requirement goes into effect on April 1, 2015.
The board encourages pharmacies to conform their prescription container labels to the new font size requirement.
A copy of the Adopted Text can be viewed on the board’s web site at http://www.pharmacy.ca.gov/laws_regs/1707_5_at.pdf
Any questions about how to implement this requirement should be directed to our Support Team. Laser and Thermal labels should be capable of the requirement change, but dot matrix may not be capable.
If you want to just make the change on your own, you can edit your label format at any time. Directions are normally located in the following spots:
Laser Labels
- 3-1-6-4 To get to Format
- 7 for Misc Items
- 2 for Directions
- E to Edit, Choose the Item, then change the “Points” field to 12
Thermal Labels
- 3-1-6-5 To get to Format
- 7 for Misc Items
- 2 for Directions
- E to Edit, Choose the Item, then change the “Size” field to 7
Keep in mind that your label format may have more than one item for directions. Most bottle label directions will have both a low Vertical Position and a low Horizontal Position.