Compounding toolkit

Can you compound or prescribe it?

Answer a few questions below to determine whether the type of compounding you are performing is in compliance with Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulations and how to access the drug product if it cannot be compounded in your office.

What is compounding?

Compounding is when a dermatologist combines, mixes, or alters ingredients of a drug to create a medication tailored to the needs of an individual patient. A drug is not considered compounded if you are simply following a manufacturer’s labeling instructions for a specific drug. 

The issue

Effective December 2016, the FDA prohibited office-use compounding, which is when traditional compounding pharmacies provide compounded medications as office stock without a patient-specific prescription. For example, If you want compounded benzocaine, lidocaine, and tetracaine to keep in the office as stock but do not know which patients it will be used on, you will now need to contact an outsourcing facility and cannot use a traditional compounding pharmacy.

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