There are some very useful suggestions in this discussion. It would be good to (be able to) give feedback to Apple to encourage improvement but, so far, the Medications app does not appear on their Feedback site:
At least Apple has a “support” page now:
BTW - I have an Apple Watch 3 which is not compatible with watchOS 9 so I cannot interact with Medications via my watch. However I do get notifications on the watch and grab my iPhone to record that I have taken the medication.
Now that I’ve been trying out Medications for a while, I have to say that I really, really wish that it offered a simple way to setup different schedules for different days.
For example, I have a bunch of pills that I take with breakfast, But I generally have breakfast at a different hour during the weekend (when I sleep in a bit) compared to weekdays (when I don’t).
I suppose I could make each pill’s schedule weekdays-only, and then add each pill all over again, this time with the weekend schedule. I haven’t tried it yet, but it seems like it would work. But it’s clumsy.
For a few years, my medication schedule has been complex enough so I found it useful to use a medication schedule app. In my case, I take pills with breakfast, between breakfast and lunch (empty stomach required), with lunch, with dinner, and at bedtime. As I am retired, I don’t have a fixed schedule and regard the schedule times as suggestions, but in the appropriate sequence, I set the log times to at approximately the beginning of the period when I might take the pills and let the notification hang around until I take them.
The two gains for the notification are its reminder function, and getting direct access to the log by tapping it, rather than going the longer route of opening the Health app first.
One major annoyance I’ve found with the medication reminders is that when the notification appears on the Lock or Home Screen, I then long press to get the options for All Taken, All Skipped, etc. I tap All Taken. Later I open to the Health app to make an adjustment to the time some other medication was taken, I’ll see that none of the items I cleared as All Taken from the reminder pop-over have actually been cleared. Then I have to think back to when I originally cleared them, edit the time (apply to all) and tap Taken and Done. I’ve experienced this flaw several times. Not helpful.
Thanks, @glennf,
with help of your description I was able to test this successfully 
Now, how do I remove a drug other than just “archiving” it? I couldn’t find a way to do this …
If you tap a medication, the Details screen has a ‘Delete Medication’ button immediately below the ‘Archive Medication’ button
I gave this a shot last night. I have a supplement I need to take with food as it can cause nausea if not. I eat at all different times and I thought having my phone yell at me would be helpful to make sure I didn’t miss a dose so I input it along with time I am likely to have eaten.
Nothing worked with the camera, but maybe because they are supplements.
I can’t find a way to duplicate an entry to edit the time, for things that are taken multiple times a day. Would be so much easier to make a 9am and copy it and just change AM to PM. Instead it defaults each added time to the actual time you are entering it.
I didn’t see a way to easily mark the actual time I took it - not critical in my case but a curiosity.
And the phone doesn’t really yell loud enough.
But I’ll give it more time.
Diane
I keep forgetting to enter, especially the “as needed” medications, as I usually do it either when I am about to shower (so my phone and watch are not with me) or I’m about to go to bed (again, the phone is on the charger and the watch is on DND so not nagging me anyway.)
You can go back and enter, plus specify which time, but that’s not terribly intuitive nor easy.
I’m probably just not going to bother until, perhaps, I’m taking enough meds that it makes a difference. I’ve gone this far through my life and, as I said, I never forget about the one medication that I’m supposed to take.
OK,
I use the Medication feature quite a bit. As I have aged, I now have an extensive list of medications to take and, a year or so ago, started playing with medication reminder apps and pill trays with compartments for pills to be taken at different times. I’ve used other free medication reminders in the past, and, except for a few issues, the Apple one measures up. A few comments and responses to others who have commented:
The library is very weak on supplements. For example, I take a Vitamin D pill daily, and, while various medications with Vitamin D show up, I had to hand-enter the plain Vitamin D gel.
The flexibility of the log is excellent. You can edit the dose to get the number of units used, even fractional ones (for one of my meds, I take 1.5 pills for a dose). You can also indicate multiple times (when entering the time, note there is a bottom box labeled ‘Add time’). I have one pill that I take twice a day, so I have used that.
When logging, the default is the time you are making the entry, but you can edit that to the actual time. you took the pill
For the Apple Watch, there is actually a Medication app for logging and editing a medication’s detail. You don’t need to do an update from the reminder but can do it independently. For discoverability and ease of use, It would be nice to have the iPhone function broken out as an app rather than being a section of the Health app.
I do wish that there was a field for recognized medications that noted food interactions. It optionally noted interactions with alcohol, but many medications have surprising interactions with particular foods or food groups (e.g. many statins with grapefruit).
Since many medications are supposed to be taken with food, other apps have that as a checkoff. I have manually put those (and other special instructions) in the notes for the med.
Anyway, that’s about it. The app is almost complete as is with no fatal flaws. One of the main reasons I switched from the commercial app I was previously using was privacy, keeping the medication data as private and secure as the rest of my Health data.
The iPhone in iOS 16 can now track your medications and issue reminders. However, I find the reminders lacking and hard to use.
The notifications aren’t persistent. They disappear after a few minutes and no longer show up. Health doesn’t show a notification count. Logging is hard. You have to go into Health, find medications, and then log. I tried creating a shortcut, but Health doesn’t have for medications.
Before, I simply used a repeating reminder — one for each medication and time. Reminders show the count, and logging is pretty simple. Plus, I can make a shortcut and log via Siri if I want.
The medications in Apple Health has a lot of nice features. It logs all the times taken and shows interactions. Strangely, the medications don’t show up in the emergency text. There’s a place to log medications you take, but it doesn’t connect to medications in the Health app.
How about a unique notification sound?
I’ve been using Pill Reminder - All In One for some time, and its “There is a medication to take” alert is annoying as hell (since I can’t edit it) but extremely useful.
What is the default alert sound for Health anyway? Whatever it is, it didn’t penetrate my consciousness when the notification came today.
Settings/Sounds & Haptics/Reminder Alerts probably applies to the Health app. There doesn’t seem to be a way to have a unique sound for the Health app.
There is a unique sound alert (and maybe a unique haptic) on the Apple Watch. I can definitely tell when a medication alert has occurred. One thing that none of the publicity mentions is that there is a Medication app on the Phone activated when the medication schedule is created on an associated iPhone. You can not only log medications taken from the notification but also from the app. You can also change details about what you have done (dose change, taken earlier than the current time, etc.)
