Medical Coding And New FDA Guidelines For WHODrug B3/C3

The new U.S.  Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandate for WHODrug B3/C3 is right around the corner.  The new standard will be required for all submissions by 15-Mar-2019.

If you have ever performed medical coding with WHODrug, you are familiar with the terms Drug name and Preferred name. However, if you are using the new WHODrug Insight browser, you realize that there are several new concepts. In both the B3 and C3 dictionaries, to which many companies are in the process of upgrading, there are new definitions surrounding Preferred name and Preferred base.  What’s more, a Generic Y/N flag has also been included.

What can be confusing is that the new term Preferred base is what used to be called the Preferred name, and the newer definition of Preferred name was often referred to as the Preferred salt name. So, please keep those changes in mind if you are reading older articles about WHODrug terms.