Pharmacy Services (Program Statement 6360.03)

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

Field	Value
Program Statement	6360.03
Subject	Pharmacy Services
Effective / current edition	05-07-2026
Change notices	None. BOP’s published policy list carries 6360.03 with no change notice, and the PDF header carries no CN marking.
Supersedes	PS 6360.02, Pharmacy Services (10/24/2022), rescinded — PS 6360.03 at p. 1
Governing statute	The Program Statement cites none for pharmacy practice itself. The Bureau’s general duty to “provide for the safekeeping, care, and subsistence” of people in its custody is 18 U.S.C. § 4042(a)(2). Controlled-substance handling runs on the Controlled Substances Act and 21 C.F.R. chapter II; opioid-use-disorder treatment in a correctional setting runs on 42 C.F.R. § 8.11(h)(3). Health-care copayments are 18 U.S.C. § 4048.
28 C.F.R. anchor	None. 28 C.F.R. part 549 (“Medical Services”) has eight subparts — A Infectious Disease Management, B Over-The-Counter (OTC) Medications, C Psychiatric Evaluation and Treatment, D Plastic Surgery, E Hunger Strikes, F Fees for Health Care Services, G Authority To Conduct Autopsies, H Civil Commitment of a Sexually Dangerous Person. None governs pharmacy practice, the drug formulary, or dispensing. Verified against the current C.F.R.
Related BP forms	BP-A0659 Medical Summary of Federal Prisoner/Alien in Transit · BP-A0825 Quarterly Narcotics Audit Team Certificate · BP-A1146 Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) Agreement — PS 6360.03 at p. 28. None of the three is posted publicly by BOP.
Official PDF	bop.gov/policy/progstat/6360_003.pdf

Checked against the BOP policy set · 2026-09-06.

Program Statement 6360.03 is the Bureau of Prisons’ internal instruction to its own pharmacy staff: how a federal prison decides which drugs it stocks, how a prescription becomes a bottle in someone’s hand, how long an order lasts, and how much medication travels with a person who is transferred or released. It was reissued on May 7, 2026, replacing the 2022 edition, and its single largest substantive change is the treatment of opioid use disorder.

This page explains the rule. The companion page on day-to-day health care is Medical and Dental Care in Prison; the policy-level explainers are Patient Care (PS 6031.06) and the Inmate Copayment Program (PS 6032.01). If your problem is over-the-counter medication — aspirin, antacid, allergy tablets — that belongs to a different Program Statement, PS 6541.03, Over-the-Counter Medications, reissued 19 March 2026. Our separate explainer covers it.

The rule itself: pharmacy services

Everything below is transcribed from the Bureau’s own text at bop.gov/policy/progstat/6360_003.pdf, with the page anchor for each passage.

The National Drug Formulary

The formulary is the list of drugs a federal prison is allowed to give you without extra permission. PS 6360.03 at p. 6, section 6.a:

a. National Drug Formulary. Each institution will use the Bureau’s National Drug Formulary. The Bureau formulary is a list of medications approved by HSD to ensure high-quality, cost-effective drug therapy for the population served. The P&T Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of the National Drug Formulary, with final approval by the Bureau Medical Director. National P&T voting members will include, at a minimum, Regional Medical Directors and Regional Chief Pharmacists. Additional members are assigned as determined by the Bureau Medical Director or designee.

All Bureau institutions, including medical centers, are expected to abide by the formulary. Requests for changes to the National Formulary (i.e., additions, deletions, changes in restrictions) are sent through the process determined by the Bureau Chief Pharmacist. All requests will be reviewed at the National P&T Meeting.

Unless indicated as a non-substitutable product, proprietary (brand or reference product) names are used as examples for identification purposes only. All institutions will use the least expensive A/B rated generic or biosimilar biologic when possible. Dispense as Written (DAW) orders will be processed as non-formulary medication orders and must include appropriate justification from the prescriber.

“HSD” is the Health Services Division at BOP’s Central Office. “P&T” is Pharmacy and Therapeutics — the committee that owns the drug list.

There is a second, local layer. Same page, section 6.b:

b. Local Drug Formulary. A local formulary may be more restrictive than the National Formulary. Medications may not be added or national formulary use criteria removed. Any changes to local formulary are made through the local P&T Committee.

Read those two together and you have the structure that decides most medication disputes: the national list sets the ceiling, and your institution may sit below it but never above it. A drug can be on the National Formulary and still be unavailable at your prison, and that is not an error — it is the local formulary doing what the policy allows.

Neither the National Formulary nor any local formulary is published. Both live on BOP’s internal intranet, and PS 6360.03 at p. 6 directs only that “Local formularies will be made available to all the institution’s health services staff and consultants.” There is no policy provision making either list available to the incarcerated person. That is the single biggest practical obstacle on this page, and it is addressed under Where people get stuck.

The non-formulary request — what the policy says, and what it does not say

This is what most readers come here for, so it is worth being exact about both halves. PS 6360.03 at pp. 6–7, section 6.c, in full:

c. Utilization of Non-formulary Medications. Authorization for use of items not on the National Formulary or beyond the listed restrictions must be requested using the Non-Formulary Request process. The process is completed through the EHR.

– A new non-formulary request is not required for intra-system transfers who previously had a non-formulary medication approved. – All comments made on the request are expected to be medically appropriate and of a nature conducive to being placed in the medical record. – Non-urgent non-formulary medications will not be initiated until after authorization is received, even if the medication is on the shelf from a previous request. Doing so can be deemed an unauthorized procurement. – Consultant providers are expected to utilize and stay within the Bureau National Formulary when making recommendations and to provide specific and adequate justification for the use of non-formulary medications. – Court orders recommending or ordering specific treatments will be referred to the appropriate Bureau attorney(s). All such orders/recommendations are still subject to the non-formulary review process.

Now the honest part. PS 6360.03 does not name the official who decides a non-formulary request, does not identify the level at which it is decided, and does not set any deadline for a decision. It says the request is made “using the Non-Formulary Request process,” that the process runs “through the EHR” — the electronic health record — and nothing further. We looked for an approving authority and a turnaround time and neither appears anywhere in the twenty-nine pages.

Two things that are stated should not be mistaken for the missing ones. First, the Bureau Chief Pharmacist and the National P&T Meeting handle changes to the formulary itself — adding or removing a drug for everyone — which is a different proceeding from a request for one patient. Second, section 6.d supplies the only number in the whole non-formulary sequence, and it is a bridging rule rather than a decision deadline. PS 6360.03 at p. 7:

d. Non-formulary Medication Continuity of Care. There are times when inmates are processed into an institution after normal working hours, weekends, and holidays. In these cases, continuation of non-formulary medications prior to approval may be medically necessary because of the following reasons:

– There is no formulary substitute or changing to a formulary substitute will not allow for appropriate follow up monitoring until the next workday. – Not providing the medication would pose a significant risk to the inmate.

When continuation of a non-formulary medication prior to approval is medically necessary, an allowance is given to dispense/administer the medication for four days while awaiting approval. This four-day allowance is only to be utilized for urgent continuity of care purposes and not for the purpose of initiating routine/non-emergency non-formulary medications without appropriate approval. It is the prescriber’s responsibility to ensure follow-up and submission of a non-formulary request prior to expiration of a currently approved non-formulary request.

So: four days of bridge coverage on arrival, for urgent continuity only, and an express instruction that the prescriber must re-submit before an existing approval expires. Nothing in the policy promises an outcome or a timetable, and this page will not invent one.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The last bullet in section 6.d is the one that quietly causes the most harm, and almost nobody watches it. A non-formulary approval expires, and the policy puts the burden of renewing it on the prescriber, not on you. Providers change; prescribers rotate; the renewal is missed; the drug simply stops. If you are on a non-formulary medication, ask your provider at every clinic visit for two things in writing: the date your current non-formulary approval expires, and confirmation that a renewal has been submitted. Put the question on a cop-out so there is a dated record. Section 6.c also says a transfer within the Bureau does not require a new request where the medication was already approved — carry that sentence with you, because it is routinely overlooked at a new institution.

Self-carry versus the pill line

Two delivery systems exist. Self-carry means the medication is dispensed to you and you keep it in your locker. Directly observed therapy — DOT, universally called the “pill line” on the compound — means you go to a window at a set time and a staff member watches you take the dose. The policy governs both. PS 6360.03 at p. 19, section 12.a:

a. Administration. The following procedures will be followed for directly observed therapy (DOT):

– Medications will be provided by pharmacy and stored in appropriate packaging and clearly labeled until administration. – DOT stock will not be in bulk containers. DOT storage systems may include: – Unit-dose packaging appropriately labeled – Medication order labeled vials with a seven to 30-day supply of the inmate’s medication – Heat-sealed blister cards provided by the pharmacy – Automated medication administration cabinets – Pharmacists will work with the Institution CD and HSA to ensure DOT administration times align with recommended medication dosing schedules. While operational and custody considerations must be considered, clinical appropriateness and the safe and effective timing of medication administration will remain the primary priority.

That last sentence is worth reading twice. The Bureau has written into its own policy that clinical timing outranks operational convenience when the two conflict. It is not a regulation, but it is the Bureau’s own stated standard, and it is quotable in a request when pill line is scheduled at a time that makes a medication useless.

On self-carry, PS 6360.03 at p. 20, section 12.c:

c. Distribution.

– All self-carry medications provided to inmates must be documented as distributed to the inmate within the distribution module of the EHR. – Medications received from a remote or central fill pharmacy are documented as received through the packing slip and distribution modules. – All institutions will ensure medications not picked up after no more than 14 days are returned to stock in the EHR. Medications not picked up at CPS serviced institutions are returned to the filling pharmacy using the return module of the EHR. – Medication dispensing will be in light-resistant moisture-resistant vials and not plastic bags.

Note the 14-day rule. A filled prescription that sits uncollected goes back to stock, and the cycle starts again. People in the Special Housing Unit, on a work detail that conflicts with pharmacy hours, or in transit are the ones this catches.

The policy also addresses the Special Housing Unit directly, at p. 20, section 12.d:

d. Medications for Inmates in Special Housing Units (SHU). Each institution will develop a procedure to ensure all inmates placed in SHU during the previous 24 hours have their current medications available. Per Program Statement Special Housing Units, prescribed medications will be collected and provided to the inmate as soon as possible.

– Local procedures will be developed to retrieve the inmate’s confiscated medication. Health Services staff will determine if the medication should be administered or redistributed to the inmate, if appropriate. – Under no circumstances will medication be locked up with the inmate’s property or thrown in “hot trash.”

And what happens to medication you arrive with, at p. 20, section 13:

– During the intake screening process, health care staff will determine the need for any medication orders. – An inmate may retain medications prescribed by another Bureau institution if they are not otherwise restricted by policy (e.g., controlled substance, DOT-required, etc.). – When an inmate enters an institution with medications from the community, the pharmacy will ensure adequate supplies are on hand prior to disposal. These medications, if appropriate, will be administered on DOT until the pharmacy is able to obtain the drug(s).

Medication brought in from the street is not returned to you. The policy directs staff to confirm the institution can supply the drug before destroying what you brought, and to run you on DOT in the meantime.

The numbers

Every row is transcribed from the passage cited. These are the limits that determine how often you refill, how much travels with you, and how long an order survives.

What	The rule, in the Program Statement’s own words	Pin-cite
Chronic-care medication orders	“All medication orders for chronic care medications, are valid for no more than 90-day fills with refills totaling 365 days within the limitations outlined in the Bureau National Formulary or elsewhere in this program statement.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 15
Pill-line (DOT) fills	“30-day fills are recommended for DOT medications.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 15
DOT vial supply	“Medication order labeled vials with a seven to 30-day supply of the inmate’s medication”	PS 6360.03 at p. 19
Schedule II controlled substances	“Schedule II controlled substance orders will be valid for 96 hours only. All orders for Schedule II used in cases of chronic or terminal illness resulting in unremitting pain not likely to abate in the short term and drugs used for narcolepsy, ADHD, and other disease states defined by the Bureau National Formulary will be valid for up to 30 days, unless otherwise defined by the Bureau National Formulary and within federal regulations.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 16
Schedule III, IV and V controlled substances	“Schedule III, IV, and V orders may be written for up to 180 days unless otherwise restricted by the Bureau National Formulary.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 16
Non-formulary bridge on arrival	“an allowance is given to dispense/administer the medication for four days while awaiting approval”	PS 6360.03 at p. 7
Uncollected prescriptions	“All institutions will ensure medications not picked up after no more than 14 days are returned to stock in the EHR.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 20
Medication after a SHU placement	“Each institution will develop a procedure to ensure all inmates placed in SHU during the previous 24 hours have their current medications available.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 20
Transfer to a halfway house or community program	“a 90-day supply of current chronic medications will be provided, unless otherwise restricted by an FDA Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) or other regulations. The number of days supplied for controlled substances may be less than 90 days and will be determined on a case-by-case basis”	PS 6360.03 at p. 21
Release from custody	“An inmate releasing from custody will be provided a minimum of 30-day supply of chronic medication(s). Up to a 90-day supply of chronic medication(s) may be dispensed on a case-by-case basis.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 21
Transfer between institutions or to another agency	“All intra-system transfers and transfers to other agencies will be provided with a minimum seven-day supply of all clinically necessary medications as noted on the BP-A0659, Medical Summary of Federal Prisoner/Alien in Transit form or exit summary in the EHR.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 21
Release packaging	“All release medications will be dispensed in an approved child-resistant container unless waived by the inmate or clinically justified”	PS 6360.03 at p. 21
Pharmacist counseling	“Oral counseling by a pharmacist will be facilitated upon inmate request when a new medication is started. It is not necessary to furnish patient counseling for each medication refill.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 9
Prohibited order types	“‘Hold medication’ orders are not allowed.” · “‘Range orders’ and ‘as needed’ (PRN) orders without specific, objective measures to determine the correct dose/frequency are not permitted.”	PS 6360.03 at pp. 15–16
Drug samples	“The use of drug samples within the institution is prohibited.”	PS 6360.03 at p. 20

Two rows in that table matter more than the rest at the end of a sentence. The seven-day minimum on an institution-to-institution transfer and the 90-day supply on transfer to a Residential Reentry Center are the two most common places medication continuity fails, because they depend on paperwork traveling with a person — the BP-A0659 — rather than on anyone at the receiving end knowing what to ask for.

Opioid use disorder: what the policy actually says

Medication for opioid use disorder — methadone, and the other medications clinicians use for the same condition — is the live issue in federal prison pharmacy practice, and it is the reason this Program Statement was reissued. Here is section 19 in full, PS 6360.03 at pp. 26–27:

19. OPIOID USE DISORDER (OUD)

Inmates will be considered for the treatment of OUD on an individual basis in accordance with clinical guidance issued by the Medical Director. Inmates who are treated for OUD with medications will have the indications for use documented in the medical record as referenced within the clinical guidance issued by the Medical Director.

a. Regulations. The DEA and the SAMHSA have regulatory authority over some of the medications and methods utilized to treat OUD. HSD will provide instruction and should be consulted to ensure compliance with applicable federal regulations. Refer to 42 CFR 8.11(h)(3) for additional guidance related to treatment of OUD in a correctional institution. If an institution receives a patient on methadone for OUD, the institution will consult with the Regional Chief Pharmacist for guidance to ensure federal regulations are followed.

b. Informed Consent. Informed consent will be obtained and documented before dispensing or administering medication for the treatment of OUD.

An agreement for treatment of OUD will be obtained upon the initiation of therapy utilizing the BP-A1146, Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) Agreement form.

The prescribing provider will be responsible for obtaining the informed consent. This task may be delegated to another qualified healthcare provider when the prescribing provider is not present. Upon intake, consent for OUD treatment should be obtained as soon as able but medications must not be held pending consent.

That is the entire substantive OUD provision. Read it carefully, because what is absent is as important as what is present.

What the Program Statement establishes. OUD medication treatment exists in BOP as a matter of policy. Consideration is individual. Informed consent is required before a dose is dispensed or administered, on a specific form, BP-A1146. And there is an intake protection that runs the other way: consent should be obtained as soon as able, but “medications must not be held pending consent” — arriving at a prison is not supposed to interrupt treatment while paperwork catches up.

What the Program Statement does not establish. It names no medications except methadone (and methadone appears in the storage and receiving provisions, at pp. 11 and 27, rather than as a treatment rule). It states no clinical eligibility criteria. It sets no time frame for starting or restarting treatment. It creates no entitlement. The clinical substance is delegated entirely to “clinical guidance issued by the Medical Director” — a document that is not part of this Program Statement, is not on bop.gov, and is not published anywhere we can verify. This page reports only what the Program Statement text says, and flags the delegation. Anyone telling you what BOP’s OUD clinical criteria are is describing a document that is not public.

Two structural provisions elsewhere in the policy do tell you something real about capacity. At p. 10, section 9.b: “Each institution will only have one registration number for controlled substances. One additional DEA registration for Narcotic Treatment Program (NTP) may be authorized per institution for Opioid Treatment Programs (OTP) under the guidance of the Bureau Chief Pharmacist.” And at p. 11, section 9.c: “Institutions with OTP certification providing methadone for opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment may store bulk methadone in either a separate safe, distinct from that used to store other controlled substances, or stored in the same vault, provided it is clearly segregated from other controlled substances.”

The phrase “institutions with OTP certification” is doing quiet work: it tells you that OTP certification is institution-by-institution rather than Bureau-wide, and therefore that the answer to “does this prison run a methadone program” is a local fact, not a national one.

The regulation the policy points to is real and current. 42 C.F.R. § 8.11(h)(3), as amended effective February 23, 2026, provides:

Certification as an OTP under this part is not required for the initiation or continuity of medication treatment or withdrawal management of a patient who is admitted to a hospital, long-term care facility, or correctional facility, that is registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration as a hospital/clinic, for the treatment of medical conditions other than OUD, and who requires treatment of OUD with methadone during their stay, when such treatment is permitted under applicable Federal law.

That regulation and PS 6360.03 fit together precisely: the policy directs at p. 10 that “For legal purposes, it is very important Bureau institutions are registered as ‘hospital/clinic’ only.” The February 2026 amendment to § 8.11 is almost certainly what the Summary of Changes means when it says the OUD updates were made “to align with changes to the Code of Federal Regulations.” That is a favorable alignment, not a gap — but it also means the operative rule for a person already on methadone who arrives at a federal prison is a federal regulation, not just agency policy, and it should be cited that way.

Related pages on our site cover the treatment side rather than the pharmacy side: Psychology Treatment Programs and RDAP (PS 5330.11), the Residential Drug Abuse Program, and RDAP Early Release Procedures (PS 5331.02). RDAP is a psychology program; medication for opioid use disorder is a medical one. They are separate systems with separate staff, and a person can be in one without the other.

The form set

PS 6360.03 at p. 28 lists three Bureau forms:

Form	Title	What it does
BP-A0659	Medical Summary of Federal Prisoner/Alien in Transit	Carries current medications with a person being transferred; the seven-day minimum supply is keyed to it (p. 21)
BP-A0825	Quarterly Narcotics Audit Team Certificate	Signed by each member of the Controlled Substances Inventory Team after the quarterly count of main-stock controlled substances (p. 14)
BP-A1146	Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) Agreement	The treatment agreement obtained at initiation of OUD therapy (p. 27)

Five DEA forms also appear: Form 106 (Report of Theft or Loss of Controlled Substances), Form 222 (U.S. Official Order Forms – Schedules I & II), Form 224 and 224a (registration and renewal under the Controlled Substances Act), and Form 363a (renewal under the Narcotic Addict Treatment Act of 1974).

None of the three BP forms is published by BOP. The Bureau posts twelve BP forms publicly; these are not among them. If a copy of a BP-A1146 or a BP-A0659 matters to your situation, the route is a records request rather than a download — see FOIA and Privacy Act Requests.

The form a reader actually files is a different one entirely: BP-A0148, Inmate Request to Staff — the “cop-out.” That is the paper that starts every medication conversation with the pharmacy or the Health Services Unit.

What binds and what does not in PS 6360.03

This distinction decides what you can actually do with this policy, so it goes here rather than buried at the end.

A Program Statement is the Bureau’s internal instruction to its own staff. It is not a regulation. In Reno v. Koray, 515 U.S. 50 (1995), the Supreme Court treated a BOP Program Statement as “an internal agency guideline” — one that does not go through notice-and-comment rulemaking, though it may still receive some deference as a permissible reading of a statute. So when this page says the policy “directs staff” to do something, that is precise language, not hedging.

PS 6360.03 is an unusually pure example. Most Bureau health-services statements print the governing regulation inside the policy text — PS 6541.03 and PS 6032.01 both carry a typographic key on page 1 marking which sentences come from 28 C.F.R. PS 6360.03 carries no such key. Its header reads only “PROPERTY OF US GOVERNMENT,” and there is no regulation to key to: no subpart of 28 C.F.R. part 549 governs pharmacy practice, the formulary, or dispensing. Every sentence in this Program Statement is staff instruction.

That has two practical consequences, and they cut in opposite directions.

Against you: a departure from PS 6360.03 is not, by itself, a violation of law. “The pharmacy did not follow its own program statement” is a true statement that establishes very little on its own.

For you: three bodies of actual law run through this policy and are enforceable on their own terms. Controlled substances are governed by the Controlled Substances Act and the DEA’s regulations in 21 C.F.R. chapter II — PS 6360.03 says so expressly at p. 10, and adds that nothing in the section authorizes “any act that is not authorized or permitted under existing federal laws.” Opioid-use-disorder treatment in a correctional facility is governed by 42 C.F.R. § 8.11, which was itself amended effective February 23, 2026. And the copayment framework — including the rule that nobody is refused treatment for inability to pay — is statutory, at 18 U.S.C. § 4048(f).

The practical lesson: when you write a request or a grievance about medication, name the clinical problem and the policy provision together, and where a statute or regulation is genuinely in play, name that too. A pin-cited policy paragraph plus a described harm is a far better document than a general complaint.

What pharmacy services policy means for you

If you are the person inside: start from the formulary

Start from the formulary, not from the drug name. If a medication you took in the community is not being continued, there are only a few possible reasons and they call for different responses: the drug is not on the National Formulary; it is on the National Formulary but not the local one; it is on the formulary but “beyond the listed restrictions” for your diagnosis; or a therapeutic substitute was made under the generic-substitution rule at p. 6. Ask, on a cop-out, which of those it is. The answer determines everything you do next, and the policy at p. 6 makes clear the answer exists in a document staff can see.

Know which delivery system you are on and why. Self-carry medication is yours to manage; DOT means a daily trip to the pill line, and DOT status is set by policy for controlled substances and by clinical judgment for everything else (pp. 19–20). If pill-line timing is defeating the medicine — a drug that has to be taken with food scheduled before a meal, an evening dose scheduled at 4 p.m. — quote p. 19: clinical appropriateness and safe timing “will remain the primary priority.”

Watch the calendar rather than the pharmacy window. Chronic-care orders run in 90-day fills with refills totaling 365 days (p. 15), which means an order silently expires at a year. Non-formulary approvals expire too, and renewal is the prescriber’s job (p. 7). Uncollected prescriptions go back to stock after no more than 14 days (p. 20). Most medication interruptions inside are calendar failures, not denials.

Ask for the pharmacist. Section 7.e at p. 9 directs that oral counseling by a pharmacist “will be facilitated upon inmate request when a new medication is started,” that counseling may happen at the pharmacy window, a counseling area, your cell, or virtually, and that it will take account of literacy and primary language. Most people never ask. It is one of the few provisions in this policy that gives you a direct, individual right to ask for something.

Sick call is the door. Under PS 6031.06 at pp. 32–33, sick call concerns must be made in person, must be assessed and triaged by a qualified provider, must be documented in the electronic health record, and must be tracked by the Health Services Administrator for timeliness. A copayment may apply — but under 18 U.S.C. § 4048(f), nothing “may be construed to permit any refusal of treatment to a prisoner on the basis that … the account of the prisoner is insolvent” or the prisoner “is otherwise unable to pay.” See our Inmate Copayment Program page.

If you are the family member: hearing about medication in fragments

You will mostly hear about this in fragments over a monitored phone or email system, and the most useful thing you can do is keep a dated written log: drug name, dose, the date it stopped, and the name of the staff member who was asked about it. Families are frequently the only party keeping a contemporaneous chronology, and a chronology is what turns a vague grievance into a specific one.

Three moments deserve your attention because they are where continuity breaks.

Designation and arrival. Medication brought from the community is not kept (p. 20). The four-day continuity allowance at p. 7 is short, and it applies only where continuation is urgent. If your loved one is on a complicated regimen, getting the community prescriber’s records into the file early matters more than anything you can do later.

Transfer. A transfer between institutions carries a minimum seven-day supply, keyed to the BP-A0659 (p. 21). Seven days is not long. Ask, before a transfer if you know of one, whether the receiving institution’s local formulary carries the same drugs.

Release and halfway house. Transfer to a Residential Reentry Center carries a 90-day supply of chronic medications; release from custody carries a minimum 30-day supply with up to 90 days case-by-case (p. 21). Those are real numbers you can plan around — line up a community prescriber and a pharmacy before the 30 days run, not after. Our related pages are Halfway House Placement Procedures (PS 7310.04) and the Release Preparation Program (PS 5325.09).

You cannot send medication in. You can fund the commissary account that pays for over-the-counter items and copayments — see How to Send Money to Federal Inmates — but prescription medication comes only from the institution pharmacy.

If you are counsel: pharmacy services

Three points are worth carrying into a file.

Build the record before you build the argument. The electronic health record is where nearly everything in this policy is documented: the pharmacist’s prospective review (p. 18), the distribution entry for every self-carry medication (p. 20), the non-formulary request itself (p. 6), the OUD consent (p. 27). Request the medical record through the Privacy Act route early, and request the local pharmacy Institution Supplement — PS 6360.03 at p. 15 makes it the container for a great deal of operative local rule, and it is not published.

Know the ceiling on a policy-based claim. Under Koray, a Program Statement is an internal guideline. Deviation from PS 6360.03 is evidence, not a cause of action. Where a claim exists it will rest on the Eighth Amendment standard of Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976), on a regulation, or on the Federal Tort Claims Act — and it should be pleaded that way from the start. This firm defends; a deliberate-indifference damages action is not our work. Where the objective is a damages remedy, the routes are the administrative-remedy ladder and the FTCA track — see Federal Tort Claims Act (PS 1320.07) — and the client should have plaintiff-side counsel.

Where medication interacts with sentencing relief, that is our work. A chronic condition that the Bureau’s formulary structure cannot manage, a serious deterioration during incarceration, or a care level the designated institution cannot support are all facts that belong in a compassionate release analysis under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), or in a redesignation request. The medical-designation framework is PS 6270.02, and our plain-language explainer is Medical Care Levels in Federal Prison. Note also that PS 6360.03 at p. 6 addresses court orders directly: they “will be referred to the appropriate Bureau attorney(s)” and remain “subject to the non-formulary review process.” A court order does not bypass the formulary; plan for that.

What changed from PS 6360.02 to 6360.03

PS 6360.03, dated May 7, 2026, rescinded PS 6360.02, Pharmacy Services (10/24/2022). The Summary of Changes on p. 1 is short and states exactly three things:

– Updates have been made throughout regarding the treatment of Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) to align with changes to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and Bureau of Prisons clinical management of OUD. – Extensive changes to include reorganization and renaming of sections have been made throughout this program statement to improve clarity and flow. – Requirement for Institution Supplement has replaced prior requirement for local procedures.

Each carries real weight.

The OUD change is the substantive one, and it is externally corroborated. 42 C.F.R. § 8.11 was amended effective February 23, 2026 — three months before this Program Statement issued — and § 8.11(h)(3) in its current form is the provision PS 6360.03 cites at p. 26. The Bureau’s own summary says the OUD material was updated “to align with changes to the Code of Federal Regulations,” and the dates line up. The second half of that sentence — alignment with “Bureau of Prisons clinical management of OUD” — points at the Medical Director’s clinical guidance, which is not public.

The Institution Supplement change is the sleeper. Where the 2022 edition called for “local procedures,” this edition calls for a formal Institution Supplement — a numbered local document, reviewed and revised annually, that must be developed by the Institution Chief Pharmacist “in concert with medical staff” (p. 15). PS 6360.03 at pp. 1–2 lists the eight provisions that now require one:

• Section 5. Standards of Operation, Subsection b. Equipment
• Section 7. Pharmacy Operations
• Section 9. Controlled Substances, Subsection g. Discrepancies
• Section 15. Patient Safety, Subsection a. Medication Non-adherence
• Section 16. Medication Errors, Subsection b. Applicability and Procedures
• Section 17. Medication Inventory Management, Subsections b. Necessity of Timely and Consistent Medication Procurement and c. Pharmaceutical Prime Vendor Contract (PPV)
• Section 18. Needles and Syringes, Subsections a. Storage and d. Discrepancies

That is not housekeeping. An Institution Supplement is a written, dated, retained document; “local procedures” often were not. For anyone building a record about how a particular pharmacy actually operates, the 2026 edition created a paper trail the 2022 edition did not require.

Two adjacent statements moved in the same wave. PS 6031.06, Patient Care, issued June 22, 2026 as part of BOP’s mass reissue, rescinding PS 6031.05 CN-2 (3/14/2025). PS 6032.01, Inmate Copayment Program, issued May 7, 2026 — the same day as this one — rescinding PS 6031.02 (8/15/2005) and, as its own Summary of Changes notes, changing the program statement number. PS 6541.03, Over-the-Counter Medications, issued March 19, 2026, rescinding PS 6541.02 (11/17/2004). Health services is the most heavily rewritten corner of the BOP policy set in 2026, and a page or a filing that relies on a pre-2026 edition of any of these four is relying on rescinded policy.

One thing did not change: there is still no regulation in 28 C.F.R. governing BOP pharmacy practice. The 2026 reissue did not create one, and none has been proposed that we can find.

Where people get stuck getting a medication continued

Four problems recur. Each has a route, and the route matters more than the complaint.

“My medication was changed to something cheaper and it doesn’t work for me.” This is the generic-substitution rule at p. 6 — “All institutions will use the least expensive A/B rated generic or biosimilar biologic when possible” — colliding with a real clinical difference. It is not misconduct, and framing it as misconduct will not help. The route is clinical: return to sick call, document the specific failure (which symptom returned, when, what you tried), and ask the provider to submit a Dispense as Written order, which p. 6 says will be “processed as non-formulary medication orders” with “appropriate justification from the prescriber.” If sick call produces nothing, a cop-out on BP-A0148 to the Clinical Director naming the drug, the substitution date and the clinical failure is the next step. Then the Administrative Remedy Program ladder: BP-9 to the Warden, BP-10 to the Regional Director, BP-11 to the Office of National Inmate Appeals, under 28 C.F.R. part 542, subpart B. BOP publishes BP-A0148 but not the BP-9, BP-10 or BP-11 forms — those come from your unit team. See also Request to Staff (PS 5511.08).

“My non-formulary request has been pending for weeks and nobody will tell me anything.” This is the structural gap described above: the Program Statement sets no decision deadline and names no deciding official. Because there is no time frame to violate, “it has been too long” is a weak grievance on its own. What works better is asking three answerable questions in writing — has a non-formulary request been submitted for me, on what date, and what is its current status — because those are facts recorded in the electronic health record and staff can answer them. A non-answer to a factual question is a much better administrative remedy than a complaint about delay. If the request is for continuity of an existing medication, cite p. 6: “A new non-formulary request is not required for intra-system transfers who previously had a non-formulary medication approved.”

“My medication stopped when I went to the SHU, or when I transferred.” These are the two highest-failure moments in the whole system, and the policy speaks to both. For the Special Housing Unit, quote p. 20 — the institution’s procedure must ensure that everyone placed in SHU in the previous 24 hours has current medications available, that local procedures exist for retrieving confiscated medication, and that “[u]nder no circumstances will medication be locked up with the inmate’s property or thrown in ‘hot trash.'” For a transfer, quote p. 21 — a minimum seven-day supply “as noted on the BP-A0659.” Ask for the BP-A0659 from your transfer. Related: Special Housing Units (PS 5270.12) and Medical Designations and Care Levels (PS 6270.02).

“I’m being released and I don’t know what medication I’ll have.” Release-side numbers are the clearest in the policy: minimum 30-day supply on release, up to 90 case-by-case, 90 days on transfer to a halfway house, and child-resistant packaging unless waived (p. 21). Raise it at your program review with the unit team, not at the pharmacy window on the last day, and raise it early enough that a community prescriber can be lined up. The Release Preparation Program (PS 5325.09) is the vehicle for that conversation.

Two cross-cutting points. First, a tort claim is a different track from an administrative remedy. Injury claims go under the Federal Tort Claims Act on an SF-95 / BP-A0943, not through a BP-9 — see Federal Tort Claims Act (PS 1320.07). Second, exhaustion matters if court is ever a possibility: under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), no action may be brought about prison conditions until available administrative remedies are exhausted. “Exhaustion” means completing every level of the internal grievance ladder, on time, before filing.

Where the underlying problem is designation, sentence computation, or whether a condition supports a motion for a reduction in sentence, the administrative-remedy path is necessary but rarely sufficient. Those belong in a consult — see Federal Prison Consulting Services or contact us.

Related BOP policy on pharmacy services

The paired practical pages: Medical and Dental Care in Prison is the plain-language walkthrough of how health care works inside, and Federal Prison Dental Care covers the dental side. Both link back here for the medication rule.

Policies that meet pharmacy services directly: Patient Care (PS 6031.06) — sick call, chronic care clinics, and the clinical decision that produces a prescription in the first place. Our explainer on Over-the-Counter Medications (Program Statement 6541.03) — everything you buy at commissary rather than get from the pharmacy, and the rule for people with no money. Inmate Copayment Program (PS 6032.01) — the $2.00 fee, what is exempt, and how to dispute it. Medical Designations and Care Levels (PS 6270.02) — why the institution you are at can or cannot manage your condition, with our companion page Medical Care Levels in Federal Prison and the Federal Medical Centers overview.

Treatment programs that sit alongside the pharmacy: Psychology Treatment Programs and RDAP (PS 5330.11), RDAP Early Release Procedures (PS 5331.02), the Residential Drug Abuse Program, Treatment and Care of Inmates With Mental Illness (PS 5310.16), and Mental Health Programs for Inmates. For older clients, Management of Aging Offenders (PS 5241.01); for women, the Female Offender Manual (PS 5200.09).

Routes and records: Request to Staff (PS 5511.08) for the cop-out, Administrative Remedy Program (PS 1330.18) for the BP-9/10/11 ladder, Federal Tort Claims Act (PS 1320.07) for the injury track, and FOIA and Privacy Act Requests (PS 1351.05) for getting the medical record. Where a medical condition bears on a sentence, Compassionate Release / Reduction in Sentence (PS 5050.51) and our page on compassionate release for serious medical conditions.

Frequently Asked Questions About BOP Pharmacy Services

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026