Monitoring and managing your loved one's numerous medications that various doctors can prescribe can be a very cumbersome task that can easily result in dangerous oversights or errors.

With a bit of time and a process, there are ways to make managing and tracking your loved one's medications more manageable and safer.

1. Put together a master list of medications, including the name, dosage (e.g., 5mg or 10mg), how many are taken per day, time of day taken, reason for the medication, whether it needs to be refrigerated, prescribing doctor’s name, pharmacy where medication was filled, last filled date, and next refill date.

2. Organize pills in a pill box with compartments for each day of the week to help simplify medication management.

3. Set a specific weekly date to refill your loved one's medications in their pill box to prevent them from running out and missing doses.

4. Prepare reminders or alarms on your loved ones' phones, watches, or calendars to avoid missing doses. Post-it notes work, too! The best reminder is to keep meds somewhere easy to see. Try placing them in their bathroom mirror, refrigerator door, or a shared area in the home—but out of reach of kids and pets.

5. Create a dosing schedule or chart, including check-off boxes at the designated daily times. After taking a medication, your loved one should mark the corresponding box on the chart. Actively tracking medication usage helps prevent unnecessary medication intake and reduces confusion about whether or not they have taken it.

6. Make medication part of a daily routine. Taking medication simultaneously during other regular activities, such as teeth brushing, before or after a meal, or at bedtime, will create a routine to boost confidence your loved one will not forget.

7. Get help by recruiting a "medicine buddy" or hiring a private caregiver to remind your loved one when to take medications. This person can be a friend, designated family member, or a neighbor who can call or check in on them at a set time each day.

8. Get prescribed a 90-day supply instead of a 30-day supply for less management potential cost savings.

9. Have medications automatically refilled by the pharmacy. Most pharmacies offer the option to refill prescriptions automatically.

10. Set up home delivery, reducing the stress of making a pick-up.

11. See if your pharmacy offers a “multi-dose” packaging service, grouping all the medications to be taken simultaneously into one convenient package. Amazon Pharmacy provides this type of service called PillPack.

12. Utilize the pharmacy’s online patient platform, making prescription management even easier, setting up automatic refills, requesting refills, reviewing how many refills are left on each medication, requesting new prescriptions, viewing refill status, and more.

13. Review your loved one's medications every six months. Get rid of medications past expiration or no longer in use. Your pharmacist can help you dispose of them safely.

14. Regularly verify all medications with your loved one's healthcare provider, including dosage, time of day, and interactions with other medicines.