Getting a prescription online in Poland: what is allowed

The pharmaceutical law states in article 68(3): «Dopuszcza się prowadzenie przez apteki ogólnodostępne i punkty apteczne wysyłkowej sprzedaży produktów leczniczych wydawanych bez przepisu lekarza...» Mail-order selling is permitted for medicines dispensed without a doctor's prescription.

The sentence is written as a permission rather than a ban, which is what makes it unambiguous: what may be posted is what it lists. Everything outside that permission stays outside the law without needing a separate prohibition.

The chief pharmaceutical inspectorate puts it in one sentence: «Przez internet można kupić wyłącznie leki dostępne bez recepty.» Only non-prescription medicines may be bought online. The rule addresses the seller, which is why it can be checked on the seller's side.

The act on the medical profession allows a doctor, in article 42(1), to examine a patient «za pośrednictwem systemów teleinformatycznych lub systemów łączności», through telecommunication systems. Remote consultation is part of the system, not a way around it.

The e-prescription is now the ordinary form: the patient receives a four-digit code and collects the medicine at a pharmacy. The first half of the journey may be remote, the second may not.

The doctor can be checked. The central register of physicians kept by the national chamber of physicians is public and searchable by surname and licence number. That is a separate question from the pharmacy, and it is asked separately.

Pharmacies entitled to mail-order selling appear in the register of pharmacies maintained by regional pharmaceutical inspectors. The search is public and needs no account.

The second sign is the common EU logo for online pharmacies, mandatory since 1 July 2015. The inspectorate describes what it must do: the logo has to carry a live hyperlink taking the user straight to the register of pharmacies.

That is the whole checking procedure: click the logo and see where it leads. An image without a link, or a link to a page belonging to the shop itself, means exactly what it looks like.

That it offers something article 68(3) does not permit. You do not have to weigh its intentions or the quality of its questionnaire: the offer itself is outside what a seller may do.

This is a statement about the seller, not about the patient. It is still the most useful thing you can learn before typing in a card number, because it tells you who is on the other side.

The legal route exists and is not burdensome: a remote consultation, an e-prescription, a pharmacy. It is slower than a three-question form, and that slowness is the point at which somebody checks the medicine suits you.