Expired Medications

Created September 23, 2026

Responsible departments

• All hospital staff (find it, notify appropriate staff)
• Pharmacy/ERA staff (find it, record on form, look for soon to expire medications)
• Inventory Team (Erica, Sonni) — vendor credit/exchanges, PIMS adjustments, 90-day planning

Purpose

Expired medications never get used on a patient or dispensed to a client. This page covers what to do the moment you find one, how Inventory gets vendor credit back when possible, how expired product is recorded and removed from the PIMS, and how each hospital flags product that is about to expire so we can move it in time.

Context

Why this matters

• Patient safety and compliance. Expired drugs are one of the most common state board inspection findings. There is no regulatory allowance for using expired drugs on any patient — including shelter, rescue, or wildlife cases.
• Money. Some vendors will issue credit for expired or short-dated product, but only if we catch it in time and follow their return process. An expired bottle sitting in a drawer is a guaranteed loss.
• Better ordering. Seeing what expires at each hospital helps us adjust what and how much we order.

Scope

Covers every drug and pharmacy item that carries an expiration date: tablets, capsules, liquids, injectables, vaccines, topicals, otics, ophthalmics, supplements, and in-house lab reagents/tests.

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Opened multi-dose vials can "expire" before the date on the box (beyond-use dating after first puncture). Those rules live on the Injectable Medications page — once a vial is past its beyond-use date, handle it the same way as anything else on this page.

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Never accept returned medications from clients to restock or reuse. Once a medication leaves the building it cannot be put back into inventory, even if it is unopened. (Prescription diets are the exception — see the Prescription Diets page.)

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• Relevant Docs

Terminologies

• Expired: Past the expiration date printed on the package. If only a month and year are printed (e.g. 10/2026), the product is good through the last day of that month, per the FDA.
• Short-dated: Still in date but expiring within the next 90 days. Short-dated product gets used first, transferred, or returned for credit before it expires.
• Beyond-use date: The date an opened or reconstituted product must be discarded, which can be earlier than the printed expiration (see Injectable Medications).
• Expired/Expiring Form: Each hospital's paper log for both already-expired product and product expiring within 90 days (CRAH, LMAH, and AAH versions are attached under Tools below).