Frequently asked questions

Mail Order Drugs is an online medicine ordering service operated by PFS Israel Corp. We are not a pharmacy ourselves: we take your order and your prescription, and licensed pharmacies we work with dispense and ship the medicine to you.

You can search the full catalogue and see the price of a medicine before you order anything or create an account. Clinical content on the site is reviewed by a licensed pharmacist.

The dispensing is done by licensed pharmacies we work with, not by us. Our role is the ordering, the prescription handling and the pharmacist review that happens before anything is filled.

That distinction matters for you in one practical way: the pharmacy that fills your order is regulated where it operates, and your medicine is dispensed under that country's pharmacy rules. We tell you on the product page where a medicine is sourced from.

For any prescription-only medicine, yes. Each product page says clearly whether a prescription is required.

If you already have a valid prescription from your own doctor, you can send it to us. If you do not have one, you can request a consultation through this site, and a prescriber decides independently whether a prescription is appropriate. Over-the-counter items and supplements do not need a prescription.

You can upload a photo or scan of the prescription with your order, or have your prescriber send it to us directly. We accept a clear image as long as the prescriber's details, the medicine, the strength and the date are readable.

A pharmacist reviews the prescription before anything is dispensed. If something is unclear, we contact you or your prescriber rather than guessing.

You can request a consultation through this site. You complete a medical questionnaire about your history, your current medicines and what you are asking for, and a prescriber reviews it independently.

A consultation is not a guarantee of a prescription. The prescriber may decline, ask for more information, request test results, or recommend that you see someone in person. If no prescription is written, you are not charged for medicine you cannot receive.

Prescribers who consult through this site are paid for the consultation only. They have no financial stake in whether a prescription is written or where it is filled.

Prescription files you upload go into private storage that is not publicly reachable, and are visible only to the pharmacy team members who need them to fill your order and to the prescriber reviewing your consultation.

We do not sell personal or health information, and we do not use your prescription details for advertising. Our privacy page sets out what we hold, why, and how to ask for a copy or a deletion.

We ship internationally to the destinations listed at checkout and on our shipping information. The list is maintained by us and changes when a destination's import rules change, so treat the list on the site as the current answer rather than anything you were told previously.

Some medicines cannot be shipped to some destinations regardless of your prescription, because of that country's own import rules. Where that applies we tell you before you pay, not after.

Once the prescription is verified and the order is dispensed, international shipping typically takes one to three weeks depending on the destination and its customs authority. Every order ships tracked and you get the tracking number the day it leaves.

The clock starts at dispatch, not at the moment you place the order. A prescription that needs clarification, or a medicine waiting on stock, adds time before dispatch. Order refills with time to spare rather than at the last dose.

You get a tracking number by email on the day your parcel leaves, and it is also shown against the order in your account. International tracking updates can lag by a day or two while a parcel moves between carriers, which is normal and is not a sign that anything is wrong.

If tracking has not moved for more than a week, contact us with your order number and we will chase the carrier rather than asking you to do it.

Parcels cross an international border and are subject to the destination country's import rules. Most personal-quantity medicine orders with a valid prescription clear without any involvement from you. Occasionally customs asks for a copy of the prescription or holds a parcel for inspection, which adds days.

Any duty, tax or handling charge levied by your country is set by that country, not by us. Where we are able to show an estimate before you pay, we do.

Medicines that must stay cold (insulins, GLP-1 pens, some fertility medicines) ship in insulated cold-chain packaging with coolant, and product pages flag them so you know before you order.

Cold-chain orders may be held until a shipping day that keeps them inside their temperature range for the whole journey, rather than sent on a Friday to sit in a depot over a weekend. When your parcel arrives, refrigerate it straight away and follow the storage instructions on the product page.

If a cold parcel arrives warm, or the coolant is fully thawed and the medicine is at room temperature, do not use it. Contact us with a photo and we will sort it out.

The illustrations on this site are our own drawings of the general form of a medicine, such as a pen, a blister pack or a tube, not photographs of the exact box you will receive. We do this deliberately rather than use manufacturer product photography.

Medicine sourced internationally also arrives in that country's packaging. The carton, the leaflet language and the tablet's colour or shape can differ from the version sold in the United States. The active ingredient, the strength and the manufacturer's quality standards are what matter, and those are stated on every product page. If anything about what arrives does not match what you ordered, contact us before taking it.

The active ingredient and the strength are the same as what is stated on the product page, which is what determines the clinical effect. What can differ is the brand name, the carton, the leaflet language, and the inactive ingredients used by that manufacturer.

Many medicines are made in one plant and sold under different names in different markets. A pack labelled for another country is not a lesser product, it is the same molecule packaged for a different market.

If you have a coeliac, lactose or dye sensitivity, tell us before you order and we will check the specific pack's excipients rather than assume.

A generic contains the same active ingredient at the same strength as the brand, and has to demonstrate that it delivers that ingredient into the body in an equivalent way before it can be sold. The difference is the name on the box, the manufacturer, the inactive ingredients and the price.

Where both exist, the product page shows them side by side and lets you choose. Where a medicine is still under patent, no generic exists and the choice does not appear.

A small number of medicines have a narrow therapeutic index, where switching manufacturers mid-treatment needs a conversation with your prescriber first. If your prescriber has specified brand only, we dispense brand.

A compounded medicine is prepared by a compounding pharmacy rather than produced at scale by the original manufacturer. Where a product on this site is compounded, it is labelled as compounded on the product page rather than presented as the brand.

Compounded versions are not identical to the branded product and are not reviewed by regulators in the same way. Read the product page carefully and raise it with your prescriber if you are unsure which is right for you.

The price you see for a medicine is our own price for that specific pack, shown in full before you order. Where we show a per-month figure, it is the pack price divided across the days that pack covers.

The comparison figure, the "typical US price", is not live pricing. It comes from published reference prices such as TrumpRx.gov and GoodRx, checked manually per product and recorded with the source and the date it was checked. That date is shown alongside the comparison so you can see how current it is.

Published reference prices move, and what you personally pay locally depends on your insurance, your plan's deductible and any coupon you use. Treat the comparison as a sourced reference point, not a promise about your own out-of-pocket cost. Products where we have not sourced a reference price simply show no comparison rather than an invented one.

Searching the catalogue, seeing prices and creating an account are free. You pay for the medicine you order and for shipping, and both are shown before you confirm.

There is no membership fee and no charge for the pharmacist review of your prescription. A consultation with a prescriber, if you need one, is priced separately and shown up front.

Orders are paid for directly by card at the time you order. Card details are handled by the payment processor, not stored by us.

The charge appears on your statement under PFS Israel Corp, the entity that operates this service, rather than under the name of the dispensing pharmacy. If you see a charge you do not recognise, that is usually why, contact us with the amount and date and we will identify it.

No. Orders are paid for directly and we do not bill insurance plans, and we are not part of any pharmacy benefit network.

Some plans reimburse out-of-network or international pharmacy purchases after the fact. We can provide an itemised receipt showing the medicine, strength, quantity and price, which is usually what a plan asks for, but whether it is reimbursed is between you and your insurer.

Repeat delivery, where a regular medicine is sent automatically on a schedule that matches your days' supply, so you are not reordering every month, is being built and is not live yet. We would rather say that than list a feature you cannot use.

In the meantime, ordering the largest pack your prescription allows is usually both cheaper per day and fewer border crossings. If you want to be told when repeat delivery opens, contact us and we will note it against your account.

You can cancel any order that has not yet been dispensed, at no cost, by contacting us with your order number. If it has already shipped, it cannot be recalled.

Dispensed medicine cannot be returned to stock and resold once it has left the pharmacy. That is a safety rule, not a commercial one, and it applies to every legitimate pharmacy.

If an order arrives damaged, incorrect, incomplete, or a cold-chain item arrives outside its temperature range, that is on us: contact us with a photo and your order number and we will replace or refund it.

Stock is shown per pack on the product page, so an out-of-stock strength is visible before you order rather than discovered afterwards. Where another strength or another manufacturer of the same active ingredient is available, the product page shows it alongside.

If something goes out of stock after you have ordered, we contact you with the options: wait for restock, switch to an equivalent pack, or cancel for a full refund, and we do not substitute a different product without your agreement.

Contact us with your order number and, where relevant, a photo. Do not take a medicine that does not match what you ordered.

For a parcel that tracking says was delivered but you do not have, tell us within a few days and we will open a carrier trace. For a parcel that has genuinely stalled in transit, we replace or refund rather than leaving you waiting indefinitely.

Our contact page reaches a person, not a bot. Include your order number if you have one, because it lets us answer in a single reply rather than a chain of questions.

Clinical questions (interactions, whether a dose is right for you, whether to switch manufacturers) are passed to the pharmacist. We will tell you plainly when a question needs your own prescriber rather than us.

You can browse the whole catalogue and see every price without an account. An account is needed to place an order, because your prescription, your order history and your tracking have to be tied to you securely.

Creating an account is free and does not sign you up to anything.

Send the prescription to us directly using the details on our contact page, and include the patient's name and the order reference if they have already placed one. We accept a signed prescription as a scan or a secure electronic transmission.

We will come back to you rather than to the patient if a dose, quantity or product needs clarifying.

The patient's full name, the medicine and its strength, the form, the quantity or days' supply, directions for use, the date it was written, and your name, licence or registration number and signature.

A photograph is acceptable as long as all of that is legible. What we cannot accept is a prescription where the strength, the quantity or the prescriber's identifying details are cropped, blurred or missing.

Every prescription order is checked by a licensed pharmacist before dispensing: the prescription's validity and prescriber details, the medicine and strength against what was ordered, quantity and days' supply, and the patient's stated allergies and current medicines for obvious interactions.

Clinical content on this site is reviewed by Saul Kaye, B.Pharm, a licensed pharmacist in Israel (license 5313, University of Sydney '95). Anything that does not pass the check is held and queried, not dispensed.

The order is held, not dispensed and not guessed at. We contact you first for anything clinical: an ambiguous strength, a quantity that does not match the directions, a product that has more than one salt or formulation.

We contact the patient only for non-clinical gaps such as a delivery address or a payment issue. If we cannot reach you and the patient's supply is time-critical, we tell the patient to seek an interim supply locally rather than let them run out silently.

Only where the prescription allows it. If you mark a prescription brand-only or write "do not substitute", we dispense exactly what you wrote or come back to you.

Where substitution is permitted and the equivalent is a different manufacturer or a pack labelled for a different market, the patient is told what they are receiving before it ships.

Refills are dispensed against the repeats authorised on the original prescription and within its validity period. Once those are used or the prescription expires, a new prescription is needed, we will not extend one on our own initiative.

Because international shipping adds one to three weeks after dispatch, we ask patients to reorder well before their last dose. If you are writing for a chronic medicine, a longer days' supply where clinically appropriate reduces the number of border crossings and the risk of a gap.

Contact us with the patient's name and, if you have it, the order number, and we will tell you where the order stands: awaiting prescription, in pharmacist review, dispensed, or shipped with tracking.

We confirm status to a prescriber on the record for that patient. We will not discuss an order with a third party who is not the patient or their prescriber.

Use the contact page and mark the message as prescriber correspondence, or reply to any query we have sent you. Those replies go straight to the pharmacy team rather than into general support.

Clinical queries from a prescriber are prioritised over general enquiries, because an order is usually sitting held behind them.

Prescribers who consult through this site are paid for the consultation only. They are not paid for, and have no financial stake in, whether a prescription is written or where it is filled.

A patient with a prescription from a consultation on this site is free to have it filled anywhere. There is no requirement to order through us.