The patient could be from out of town, it is a holiday weekend when the patient ran out of medication and the patient needa a refill of (a) cardiac medication, (b) inhaler for asthma or (c) other medication that when taken, prevents exacerbation of the medical condition which could worsen to a life threatening condition.

In the CPT manual, there is an example for a 99281 and medication refill is one of the examples.

An emergency is based on a prudent layperson definition.

If it's a med refill, it's a med refill.