Frequently Asked Questions
With the exception of students, interns and registrants holding an Emergency Assignment (EA) certificate of registration, all pharmacists and pharmacy technicians must complete the annual renewal process.
Your annual renewal is comprised of filing of information and payment. Both parts must be completed to successfully renew your license.
- Filing of Information: Confirm or update personal and workplace information and respond to a series of declarations, including if you have completed the mandatory Orientation for Minor Ailments Prescribing module.
- Payment: The College accepts credit card, cheque or money order.
Provider Experience Survey
Included in the annual renewal is a link to a survey containing four provider experience indicators that will help the College use an evidence-based, data-informed approach to understand the overall experience of regulated pharmacy professionals and, ultimately, the impact of that experience on the provision of quality and safe pharmacy services. All responses to the survey will be anonymous and cannot be traced to any individual respondent.
Pronoun Collection
As part of annual renewal, the College is inviting registrants to share their pronoun information to help the College use inclusive and accurate language during interactions with registrants. Pronouns refer to how you would like to be referred to in the third person and could include she/her, he/his or they/them. Sharing pronoun information with the College is optional and will only be used during staff-registrant interactions. The College’s commitment to safeguarding registrants’ privacy is reflected in our Privacy Policy.
Registrants should set aside 10-15 minutes to complete their annual renewal. If there are changes to your personal and workplace information, you will be asked to update it. Registrants will also be asked to respond to a series of declarations. These should be read carefully before responding.
Included in the annual renewal is a link to the provider experience survey. The survey link will take registrants outside of the annual renewal to an external survey platform, where they can provide their responses anonymously. The survey is voluntary and will take around 5 minutes to complete.
Annual renewal must be completed by March 10. You are highly encouraged to complete the annual renewal process in advance of the March 10 deadline to avoid late fees. The College will communicate with registrants regularly leading up to the renewal deadline.
The College accepts credit card, cheque or money order. As of 2023, the OCP portal no longer supports Interac debit payment.
Registrants can complete the annual renewal process using a desktop or laptop computer. The annual renewal process is not compatible with mobile phones.
Ensure you are using the most up to date version of either Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Chrome or Firefox, and that you have installed Acrobat Reader on your computer. If you wish to print confirmation of completion, please ensure your printer can print from your web browser prior to starting your annual renewal process.
The provider experience survey contains four provider experience indicators that will help the College use an evidence-based, data-informed approach to understand the overall experience of pharmacy professionals and, ultimately, the impact of that experience on the provision of quality and safe pharmacy services. All responses to the survey will be anonymous and cannot be traced to any individual respondent.
FAQs on provider experience indicators can be found here: https://www.ocpinfo.com/about/key-initiatives/quality-indicators-for-pharmacy/provider-experience-indicators-faqs/.
To ensure pharmacists fully understand their ethical, legal, and professional obligations when prescribing for minor ailments, a scope of practice regulatory change effective as of January 1, 2023, the College has developed a mandatory Orientation for Minor Ailments Prescribing module.
Part A pharmacists were required to complete the module before engaging in this scope of practice expansion and before December 31, 2023.
More information on the Orientation for Minor Ailments Prescribing module can be found on the College website.
No, sharing your pronouns with the College is optional. If you do choose to share your pronouns, this information will only be used to support inclusive and accurate language during your interactions with the College.
The Knowledge Assessment is a mandatory educational tool for Part A pharmacists to help support their delivery of safe, quality patient care. A component of the College’s mandatory Quality Assurance Program, the Knowledge Assessment assesses pharmacists’ ability to apply clinical knowledge as well as current legislation, ethics and scope of practice to patient care scenarios. All Part A pharmacists are required to complete the knowledge assessment, when selected to do so, approximately once every five years.
Revenue from annual fees is necessary for the College to meet our legislated obligations and regulate the profession in the public interest. College by-laws approved by the Board of Directors in 2020 set an annual increase in fees to be tied to the percentage increase, if any, in the Consumer Price Index (Ontario all items) as of September 30th of each year. The intention is to reduce the need for large increases in fees in any single year by keeping up with inflation, which impacts everyone and contributes to higher costs for all organizations, including the College.
The Consumer Price Index as of September 30, 2023, was 3.6%. Therefore, annual fees for 2024 will increase by 3.6%. You can access the 2024 Schedule of Fees here.
Access FAQs on annual fees.
For any questions about the annual renewal process, please contact the Registrant Applications and Renewals team at registrantservices@ocpinfo.com or 416-962-4861 / 1-800-220-1921 ext. 3400.