Medication Elapsed Date

A medication's elapsed date indicates when the medication supply will come to an end for that patient.

Elapsed Date Warnings in the Health Summary

The elapsed date is calculated automatically based on directions, quantity and repeats and the dates in the prescription. Practitioners can also enter a date manually to indicate the completion of treatment.

Based on the elapsed date calculated for a medication, warnings are displayed in the Health Summary iconHealth Summary:
  • Approaching elapse date background colourApproaching elapse date - regular, long term medications with an elapse date within 7 days are rendered with a blue-grey background, to remind you to review and represcribe the medication to ensure that the patient has enough supply.
  • Past elapse date background colourPast elapse date - regular, long term medications where the medication elapse date is before today's date are rendered with a red background.

Example Health Summary with medications

Elapsed Date Indicators

Elapsed date for regular, long term medications is determined by dose, frequency and instructions.

Automatically set - successful calculation

For standard directions, the elapse date can be automatically calculated. For example, in the case of Aspririn, 100mg:
Table 1. Directions
Dose Frequency Instructions
1 tab daily as directed
In the example below, the elapsed date for ASPIRIN tablet 100mg with quantity of 7, with 1 daily as directions, and the date of prescribing 30/8/2023 will give us an elapsed date of 5/9/2023.
Example automatically set elapse date

For a practitioner, this elapsed date means that the supply of ASPIRIN tablet 100mg will last until 5/9/2023 and they will need to provide a new prescription after this date, or the medication will have to be ceased.

Unable to automatically set elapsed date - unsuccessful calculation

There are some complex directions where the elapsed date is not automatically calculated as indicated as in the table below. In the example, the elapsed date ASPIRIN tablet 100mg with qty of 7 with 2 daily when required as directions and the date of 28/10/2019 will not give us an elapsed date.
Example unsuccessful elapse date calculation

Manually set - selecting a date manually

Whether the elapsed date is automatically set or unable to be automatically set, you can change the elapse date manually: select the date and switch to Use automatic estimate if it was calculated.


Example manually set elapse date