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Dashboard of refill prescription awareness and utilization

Last Updated:

Notice

  • The data was updated on March 19, 2026.

Table of Contents

1. What is a refill prescription?

Refillable prescriptions, which were introduced in fiscal 2022, can be used up to three times within a period set by a doctor for patients whose symptoms are stable and who meet certain requirements. The use of refillable prescriptions has the advantage of reducing the burden of hospital visits and the total amount of medical expenses.

2. Awareness of refill prescriptions

In order to ensure that patients with stable symptoms can appropriately use refillable prescriptions, it is important for physicians, pharmacists, and patients to be aware of refillable prescriptions and to create environments in which physicians can make proposals to patients and patients can consult with physicians. For this reason, we have established the recognition rate of refillable prescriptions by patients as a KPI and are working to promote it. Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is conducting a survey on the implementation status of refillable prescriptions, including recognition of refillable prescriptions, intention to use them, and whether they have ever issued them.

2.1 Patient Perception

You can check patient awareness of refill prescriptions by age or over time.

With the aim of creating an environment in which all patients are aware that they have the option of refillable prescriptions and can consult with doctors, we will disseminate and publicize refillable prescriptions in an easy-to-understand manner to the public. Our first goal is to increase patient awareness (knowing the details of the system and just the name) to 50% or more by fiscal 2030.

2.2 Recognition Status of Physicians

You can check the recognition status of doctors regarding refill prescriptions and the issuance results (percentage) including long-term prescriptions.
Long-term prescription refers to the prescription of a long term for a prescribed number of days if the patient's condition is stable when prescribed by a doctor.

The goal is to have at least 95% of doctors (*) issue refill prescriptions or long-term prescriptions of 28 days or longer by fiscal 2030.
(*) Physicians engaged in clinical departments (dermatology, ophthalmology) that exclusively prescribe topical drugs (ointment, eye drops, etc.) for which the number of prescribed units is not a certain number of days or in clinical departments that exclusively perform surgery, etc. (surgery, radiology, rehabilitation, anesthesiology, emergency department) shall be excluded from the calculation.

2.3 Awareness of pharmacists

You can check the annual trend of pharmacists' awareness of refill prescriptions.

3. Use of refill prescriptions

You can check the percentage of medical institutions that have issued refill prescriptions and the issuance rate nationwide and by prefecture.

Points to Consider

Data:

The visibility stats used for the dashboard are gathered in Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

These data are put together and published together as structured data for dashboards.

Defining Data

See below for a definition of data.

Refresh Data

We plan to update the various numbers in the dashboard regularly.

True or false information

For true-or-false information about the statistics in this dashboard, see True-or-False: Refill Prescription Awareness and Utilization Dashboard .

Contact Information

Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare Department of Health Services

  • Phone: 03 3595 2577
  • Email: iryouka-kikakuhourei _ atmark _ mhlw. go. jp
    • "@" is displayed as " _ atmark _ " to prevent spam mail. When you send mail, please change " _ atmark _ " to "@" (one byte).

FAQ

If you have any questions, please check the FAQ .