Overview
- Licensed nurses and authorized interns may issue prescriptions only within public health settings such as IMSS, ISSSTE, IMSS-Bienestar, state units, mobile brigades and community programs.
- Prescribing operates under three modalities—Initial/Autonomous, Collaborative, and Advanced Practice (ERA/EPA)—with greater autonomy granted to nurses trained for expanded or advanced practice.
- All prescriptions must be restricted to medicines listed in the Compendio Nacional de Insumos para la Salud, covering common analgesics, antibiotics, diabetes and cardiovascular drugs, contraceptives and other primary care treatments.
- Institutional prescription formats are mandatory and must include professional credentials, institutional details, patient identifiers, the prescribing modality, the generic drug name and compendium code, and full dosing instructions.
- Interns prescribe only within their competence under supervision, and medical interns may use controlled substances solely to continue an already indicated treatment when no physician is available.