A pharmacy technician with the 18th Medical Support Squadron hands a prescription to a patient at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Nov. 16, 2021. (Anna Nolte/U.S. Air Force)

U.S. military pharmacies overseas are instituting an interactive, voice-response system for prescription refills, the Defense Health Agency announced recently.

The transition to the new system started at military hospitals and clinics in September and is about 78% complete, DHA spokesman Peter Graves told Stars and Stripes by email Wednesday.

“We are currently working with the vendor to provide local numbers for our [outside the continental U.S.] sites, which will broaden communication capabilities for our beneficiaries,” he said. “Our goal is to transition completely by June 2025.”

The change means military pharmacies may create a new phone number for their prescription refill lines.

“Most [military treatment facilities] have already updated their pharmacy labels and websites with their new number, and they are call forwarding the old refill number to aid patients who still have prescriptions with the old number on it,” Graves said.

The change should be seamless for beneficiaries whose usual treatment facility uses a local phone tree or 1-800 number.

Patients can still refill prescriptions using the MHS Genesis Patient Portal online, according to a DHA news release.

Some patients who prefer the phone system over the online refill method are hopeful this upgrade will be an improvement.

“Hopefully this actually makes it easier,” one commenter wrote Dec. 18 on Tricare’s official Facebook page. “MHS Genesis has made it more difficult to refill online than the previous online system.”

DHA says the transition will not affect existing prescriptions or refills and that all remaining refills will automatically move over to the new system.

“The digital refill call system is already active, and we are working towards new capabilities that are being piloted by Edwards [Air Force Base], to include refill pickup notifications,” Graves said.