How to set up a medication course, schedule and reminders
A medication course in HealthLab records one medicine with its dose, duration and intake schedule, and sends reminders at the times you set. Setting it up takes six steps: name and dose, schedule, reminders, photo, PIN protection for dose confirmation, and linking the course to your cabinet stock. All six steps are available on the free tier, with no subscription and no account.
What you can set up and where
| What you want to do | Where in the app | Free / Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Create a course with a name, dose and duration | Medications & courses → Courses & schedule | Free |
| Set the time and days of each dose | Courses & schedule → course schedule | Free |
| Turn on push reminders for each dose | Courses & schedule → Reminders | Free |
| Attach a photo of the medication to the course | Course detail → photo | Free |
| Protect dose confirmation with a PIN | Medications & courses → PIN protection for dose confirmation | Free |
| Link the course to your cabinet stock so refill math works | Courses & schedule → cabinet | Free |
| Scan a paper prescription and turn it into a course automatically | Medications & courses → Prescription import from photo | Pro |
Why a course, not just a line in a medication list
A course is not a note that says “taking this” — it is a structured record with a dose, a duration and a schedule, with reminders, dose confirmation and stock tracking attached to it. The difference shows up in practice: a list can be read, a course can be worked through step by step and checked afterward. That is why setup is split into six separate steps: each one adds one capability, and the course keeps working even if some steps are skipped for now.
Step 1. Create a course: name, dose, number of days
Open Medications & courses and add a new course. Enter the medication’s name, the dose per intake, and how many days the course runs. If a medicine is taken indefinitely — a long-term replacement therapy, for example — you can leave the duration open and set it later, once a doctor reviews the treatment plan. (Free)
Step 2. Set the intake schedule
In Courses & schedule, set how many times a day the medicine is taken and at what times. The schedule can be a single daily dose or several doses spread across the day, each with its own dose amount if needed. This schedule is what drives when reminders fire and how the adherence calendar fills in — without it, there is only a medication name with no time attached. (Free)
Step 3. Turn on push reminders
Reminders in HealthLab follow the course schedule: when a dose is due, the app sends a push notification. If notification permission has not been granted on the device, iOS will ask for it the first time reminders are set up — without that permission, reminders will not arrive, though the course and schedule keep working and stay visible in the app exactly the same. Permission can be granted later in iOS settings, and reminders will resume from the next scheduled dose. (Free)
Step 4. Attach a medication photo
You can attach a photo of the package or the pill itself to the course card. This helps when the cabinet holds several similarly looking medications, when a new generic version comes in different packaging than the one before it, or when another family member is responsible for a dose and recognizes the package faster by sight than by the active ingredient’s name. (Free)
Step 5. Turn on PIN protection for dose confirmation
PIN protection for dose confirmation requires a 4-digit PIN before a dose can be marked as taken. This does not lock the app itself — it adds a check specifically on the “dose taken” action, which is useful when more than one person uses the phone, when a child or an older relative confirms a dose under supervision, or when you simply want confidence a dose was not marked by accident with a stray tap. (Free)
Step 6. Link the course to your cabinet stock
If the same medication already exists in your home medicine cabinet, link the course to it — every confirmed dose then subtracts one unit from the stock, and the app calculates when supply will run out and when to buy the next pack. Without this link, the course and schedule still work exactly the same way, just without automatic stock tracking — you would need to count remaining pills yourself. (Free)
Example: a 7-day antibiotic course
A doctor prescribes an antibiotic for 7 days, twice a day — morning and evening. That is 14 doses over the course, and each one matters for completing the treatment, not just for feeling better sooner. In practice, the evening dose is the one most often missed: the morning dose fits into an existing routine alongside breakfast, while the evening one competes with errands, guests, or the wind-down before sleep, when medication is simply not top of mind. Two reminders a day and the adherence calendar (covered in Medication intake log and adherence calendar) make a missed evening dose visible the same evening, rather than only after the course is already over — when there is nothing left to fix and no way to know whether treatment was actually completed.
Edge cases
- Irregular schedule. Some medicines are not taken daily: an alternate-day steroid taper, a once-a-week injection, or an as-needed painkiller that is only logged when actually taken. Set the exact intake days in the course schedule rather than leaving it at a daily default — for an as-needed medicine, a course can also be used without a fixed daily reminder, simply to log each dose and keep the running stock count accurate.
- Time-zone change. The schedule follows the device’s local time, so reminders shift automatically the moment the iPhone’s clock updates after a flight. That is convenient for a once-a-day dose but can be misleading for a medicine that depends on a fixed interval between doses rather than a fixed hour — for example, a twice-a-day antibiotic on a long-haul flight crossing several time zones. In that case, count hours since the last dose instead of trusting the new local time for the first day or two, and let the schedule catch up once the trip is over.
- Notifications muted or permission denied. A Focus mode, Do Not Disturb, or a denied notification permission all suppress the push reminder without touching the underlying course or schedule — the dose is still due, it just will not visibly interrupt the phone. The course, schedule and adherence calendar keep working regardless, so a dose can still be confirmed manually from Medications & courses. Notification permission for HealthLab can be granted or restored later from the iPhone’s Settings app, after which reminders resume from the next scheduled dose.
Free or Pro
Creating a course, the intake schedule, push reminders, a medication photo, PIN protection for dose confirmation, and linking the course to cabinet stock — all of this is Free, unlimited, no subscription required. The one related Pro feature is prescription import from photo, where AI extracts the medication, dose, frequency and duration from a photo of a paper prescription straight into a course; this article covers setting a course up manually, not that recognition flow. Every step above works exactly the same way with or without a subscription.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an account to set up a medication course and reminders?
No. HealthLab requires no registration, email, or login. Courses, schedules and reminders are stored locally on your iPhone via SwiftData, and the reminders themselves are local device notifications, not tied to any server.
How many medication courses can I run at the same time?
There is no limit on the number of courses. You can run separate courses for different medications at the same time, each with its own schedule and reminders.
Can I schedule levothyroxine with HealthLab's reminders?
Yes, a course and its reminders work for any medication with a fixed intake time, including thyroid replacement therapy. For why levothyroxine timing relative to a blood draw matters, and how it affects a TSH result, see TSH test guide.
What if I missed the reminder notification and it's already gone from the lock screen?
Open the course card in Medications & courses — you can confirm or mark a missed dose there manually, regardless of whether the notification is still on the lock screen.
Does a medication course affect dosing or my doctor's prescription?
No. HealthLab records the schedule your doctor prescribed and reminds you of it — the app does not recommend a dose, does not change a treatment plan, and does not replace a doctor’s advice.
HealthLab for day-to-day medication use
A course, schedule and reminders are a one-time setup per medication. Confirming each dose day to day, the intake history and the adherence calendar are covered separately in Medication intake log and adherence calendar. If your cabinet holds more than one medication with the same active ingredient under different brand names, HealthLab surfaces that too.
All courses, schedules and reminders are set up on the Medications & courses page — no account, no registration, and your data stays on your device.
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