Standards
NCPDP is an ANSI-accredited Standards Development Organization. Currently, these NCPDP standards have been approved as an American National Standard (ANS).
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Continuous Maintenance Standards:
Telecommunication Standard
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Other ANSI Approved Standards:
Billing Unit Standard
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NCPDP will submit additional standards for ANS approval. The NCPDP standards manuals provide technical guidance and education in implementing standard formats for pharmacy industry business processing.
What Other Standards Does NCPDP Support?
For an overview of NCPDP Standards, please see the
Basic Guide To
Standards (located on the blue left side menu under "Standards Process".)
How Do I Obtain A Copy of A Standard?
NCPDP Standards are available to any interested party. (NCPDP documents are copyrighted and may not be
copied or distributed without express written permission from NCPDP.)
As an NCPDP member:
The Council provides a complementary copy of each standard with an individual paid
membership. For more information on membership and the numerous benefits, visit the Membership Page.
Members also have access to download the NCPDP documents from the "Members Only", "Standards Download"
section.
As a non-member:
The cost to purchase the NCPDP Implementation Guides and Data Dictionaries is $650.00. With that price you also get an
NCPDP membership allowing you access to all standards updates, the member directory, work group meetings and numerous other
invaluable networking opportunities. If you have any questions contact
Laura Seras, or contacting the Council office at 480-477-1000 ext. 102.
What Is The Difference Between The Standard Implementation Guide, Data Dictionary and External Code List (ECL)?
An NCPDP Standard Implementation Guide usually contains the data layout or format of transaction(s). It contains technical rules and guidance for the format.
Additionally, it provides information about the transaction(s), including business rules, guidance for usage, matrices of usage, and examples.
An NCPDP Data Dictionary contains the field identifiers, format, values, descriptions, and reject codes for the data elements supported in the various NCPDP Standards. It is intended to go hand-in-hand with a standard and implementation guide.
An NCPDP External Code List (ECL) contains values, descriptions, and reject codes for a subset of the data elements supported in the current NCPDP Standards. It is intended to go hand-in-hand with the Data Dictionary and is a subset of that document. (Click here to view the ECL Process Overview)
Note: Older Standard versions consisted of a Standard document and an Implementation Guide document. The Standard document contained the technical rules, data layout and fomat while the Implementation Guide provided information on the transaction(s), guidance for usage, and examples.Over a period of time these two documents were combined into one Standard Implementation Guide for each standard.