How to verify a medication: a step-by-step guide

Medication verification is what pharmacists call the checks they run before a prescription leaves the counter: is this the right medicine, at the right strength, for the right person? You can run your own version of that check at home in a couple of minutes. It is worth doing whenever a refill arrives, a medicine looks unfamiliar, or you are looking after someone else's medicines.

None of this replaces your pharmacist. It gives you the information to know when to call them.

What you need

• The medicine, in the container or packaging it came in
• Your prescription, or the list of medicines your doctor gave you
• Good light and a few minutes, or a phone camera

The six checks

1. Check the pharmacy label against your prescription
2. Look up the NDC in the FDA's directory
3. Check the pill itself
4. Scan the square code on prescription packaging
5. Check whether it has been recalled
6. Check the dates

1. Check the pharmacy label against your prescription

Start with the label the pharmacy printed. Before anything else, confirm it is actually yours and that it says what you expect:

• Your name, and not someone with a similar one
• The medicine's name, brand or generic
• The strength, such as 10 mg or 500 mg
• The directions: how much, how often, and how to take it
• The prescriber's name

A generic name where you expected a brand name is normal: most prescriptions in the United States are filled with generics. A different strength from the one you were told about is not something to guess at.

2. Look up the NDC in the FDA's directory

The National Drug Code, or NDC, is the number the FDA uses to identify a drug product. It is printed on the manufacturer's packaging, and many pharmacy labels print it too. It has three parts: the labeler (the company), the product (the drug, its strength and its dosage form), and the package.

On packaging the NDC has ten digits in three groups, such as 12345-678-90. Pharmacy and billing systems often show an eleven-digit version of the same code, padded with a zero so that each group has a fixed length. Both point to the same product.

Looking the NDC up in the FDA's National Drug Code Directory tells you what that exact code is on file as: the name, the strength, the dosage form and the company. If the directory describes a different medicine or a different strength from your label, that is a question for the pharmacy.

3. Check the pill itself

In the United States, most prescription and over-the-counter tablets and capsules must carry an imprint: letters, numbers or a logo stamped or printed on the surface. Together with the colour and shape, the imprint identifies the product.

If a refill looks different from last time, the most common reason is a change of generic manufacturer. Generics can differ in colour, shape and imprint while containing the same active ingredient at the same strength. Your pharmacist can tell you what the imprint on your pill should be.

4. Scan the square code on prescription packaging

Manufacturer packaging for prescription medicines increasingly carries a small square 2D barcode next to the striped one. Under the Drug Supply Chain Security Act it holds the product identifier (which contains the NDC), a serial number, the lot number and the expiration date. Those four are usually printed beside it in plain text too, labelled something like GTIN or NDC, SN, LOT and EXP.

Scanning it gives you the lot and the expiry without reading tiny print, and the lot is what matters in the next step. You will find it on manufacturer boxes and stock bottles; a pharmacy's own vial label usually does not carry one.

5. Check whether it has been recalled

A drug recall usually covers specific lots from a specific manufacturer rather than a whole medicine, and the notice often never reaches the person taking it. The FDA publishes recalls and its enforcement reports publicly. To check yours you need the NDC, and ideally the lot number.

If a medicine you take has been recalled, do not simply stop taking it. Call your pharmacist or prescriber with the drug name, the NDC and the lot, and ask what to do. They can often replace it the same day.

6. Check the dates

There are often two dates. The manufacturer's expiration date is on the original packaging. The pharmacy label may carry its own discard-by or beyond-use date, which is often earlier, because the medicine has been moved out of its original container. Go by the earlier of the two.

An expired medicine can lose strength. Your pharmacy can tell you how to dispose of one safely.

When to call your pharmacist

• The name or strength on the label is not what you were prescribed
• The label has someone else's name on it
• The NDC describes a different medicine when you look it up
• The pill does not match what your pharmacist says it should look like
• The medicine has been recalled, or is past its date
• Anything about it worries you

Pharmacists answer these questions all day, and would much rather hear from you than have you skip a dose or take the wrong thing.

Common questions