The issue of medical cards that stop working before the expiration date is something that patients always bring up. Here is how this works with the PA Dept of Health Medical Marijuana Program:
Let’s say you were certified by a physician on October 1, 2020. Your pay the state fee ($25 or $50) for the card. Your card arrives and the expiration date says “October 7, 2021“.
It is now one year later, October 1st, 2021. You go to your dispensary and you are told your card is “inactive”. You don’t understand how because it’s not expired. Why?
The state actually goes by the date you were certified (October 1, 2020). If you do not pay the ANNUAL CARD FEE ($25/$50) before October 1, 2021 (the ONE YEAR Anniversary of when you were certified, your card goes inactive. So how do we remedy this?
So let’s go back to October 1, 2021. You simply have pay the state the ANNUAL CARD FEE. The unexpired card is now REACTIVATED! The expiration date is October 7, 2021. The card will LAST BE ACTIVE the date before – October 6, 2021.
Maybe this is all starting to make sense.
The PA Dept of Health Medical Marijuana Program notifies patients 60 days before their card expires that its time to get in touch with your certifying physician. You can renew your card from that point forward. This will not move your expiration date up at all!
Example: You are certified March 14, 2021. You receive an email from the state on January 14, 2022 telling you to get re-certified. You decide to re-certify with your physician on January 20th 2022. Your NEW card will expire around March 14, 2023 (NOT January 2023). Its similar to how you can renew your Pennsylvania Driver’s license 90 days before your birthday but it will still expire the day after your birthday.
I wish the program explained this better to patients but I’m hoping this helped.
To your health!
Dr Sam