Surescripts Medication History provides essential data on medication fills directly from pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). This data enables care teams to assess medication adherence, remove barriers to care, and close the loop on essential therapies. Canvas offers an out-of-the-box integration that allows users to access this history for both front-end display and reporting purposes.

User’s Guide

This section explains how to request and utilize Surescripts Medication History within Canvas, including its functionality, guidance on its use, and common troubleshooting solutions.

Requesting and Viewing Medication History

Making a Medication History Request

• Navigate to Settings > Patients in the Practice section.

• Click Medication History next to the patient’s name.

• Only users with a valid provider NPI and SPI (Surescripts provider id) associated with their profile can submit a request.

Common Errors Making Medication History Requests

Review the patient and staff profiles to check for the following discrepancies:

• Patient name contains special characters.

• Patient address is missing.

• Patient address Type is not listed as Home.

• Patient address Use is not listed as Postal or Both.

• Patient does not have active coverage.

• Patient has not had a valid eligibility check in the last 3 days.

• Requesting provider lacks an address in their staff profile

• Requesting provider does not have a valid NPI and/or SPI.

Viewing Medication History Data

After a response is received, the medication history can be accessed through two methods:

User Interface

• Navigate to Settings > Patients

• Click Medication history next to the patient’s name.

Database Access

• Medication data is stored in a read-only replica, allowing for reporting and automated actions.

• The practice’s development team must generate database reports.

  • Technical users: Review Generating a Database Report for Medication History below for information on database tables and creating the report

Configuration & Setup

Enabling Medication History

• Contact Canvas Support to activate the integration.

• Ensure that provider staff profiles include a valid National Provider Identifier (NPI) and Surescripts Provider Identifier (SPI).

• Grant users the necessary permissions to request and view medication history.

Generating a Database Report for Medication History

Structure of the Data

Summary of the relevant tables:

• MedicationHistoryResponse: Records each response received from Surescripts. Each row represents a unique response for a specific patient. Multiple requests will generate multiple rows.

  • Example: If two requests are made on different dates and Surescripts sends responses for each, there will be two separate rows in this table representing each response date.

• MedicationHistoryMedication: Stores specific medication data from Surescripts responses. This table is pruned with each new response, meaning prior data for the patient and date range is overwritten.

  • This table will always include the most up to date medication history information for all patients.

  • Example: A fill was reversed and medication history is requested again, that fill would no longer appear in this table.

• MedicationHistoryMedicationCoding: Contains coding details for each medication, typically the NDC code.

Important notes regarding the database tables:

• No Unique IDs for Fills: Surescripts does not provide unique IDs for fill events, so it is not possible to map fill events uniquely across requests.

• No Direct Mapping: There is currently no direct mapping between the MedicationHistoryResponse and MedicationHistoryMedication tables.

FAQs

Q: What are the data sources for Medication History?
A: Data is retrieved from:

• Pharmacies (up to 90% participation)

• Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs)

Q: How does Canvas receive medication history information?

A: Each request follows a structured process:

1. Request Sent: A MedicationHistoryRequest is sent to Surescripts for a patient.

2. Response Received: Surescripts returns a MedicationHistoryResponse with medication fill data or a denial notice.

3. Request Validation: Each request must originate from a Surescripts-authorized provider. The active user in the UI serves as the requester.

Q: What is the difference between filled and sold medications?
A: A fill event occurs when a pharmacy receives a prescription. However, if the patient does not pick up the medication, the claim is reversed, and it is removed from the Medication History. If provided, the SoldDate value confirms whether the medication was sold to the patient. This is occasionally sent by the pharmacy and is only included if the medication was actually sold to the patient.

Q: Why am I seeing duplicate entries of medication?
A: De-duplication is not enabled, meaning duplicate records from PBMs and pharmacies may appear.

Q: How does the medication history match with the patient?
A: Matching relies on patient demographics from pharmacies and PBMs, which may not always be consistent across sources.

Q: Can Medication History run automatically?

A: COMING SOON: Yes, it will be possible through Plugin-Initiated Requests. It will enable automated retrieval of medication history based on predefined triggers.

Keywords & Metadata

• Keywords: medication history, Surescripts, pharmacy data, prescription fills, PBMs, Canvas Medical, medication adherence

• Categories: Medication Management, Integrations, Patient Data