NDC Codes

provider vendors should send the representative national drug code (ndc) of the medication, if available, in the painitiationrequest the ndc is not required by the ncpdp standard, but pbm/payers may do additional validation on this field or may return errors if not included sending the ndc can help ensure that the medication can be easily identified in the pbm/payer system a representative ndc is an 11 digit code that depicts a category of medication regardless of package size and manufacturer/labeler representative ndcs should be used in the pa process to maximize the opportunity that the selected value exists among the various medication files a representative ndc should not be a repackaged, obsolete, private label, or unit dose ndc unless it is the only available identifier note the drug database compendia should be current so the most applicable ndc available for the requested medication can be sent pbm/payers should not expect that provider vendors are always populating the ndc in the painitiationrequest and should consider additional medication matching logic in cases when the ndc is not populated surescripts may verify ndcs included in painitiationrequest messages in the case of an obsolete ndc being discovered upon verification, surescripts may replace the original ndc with a non obsolete representative ndc when surescripts replaces ndcs, surescripts will provide notice of the change to the prescriber via the panote in the corresponding painitiationresponse