Pharmaceutical Coding

Chapter Objectives:
Discuss the advantages of coding pharmaceuticals
Differentiate the types of internal coding system
Demonstrate alpha-numeric coding system
Discuss price variation announcement

04/15/2025 1
3.1. Pharmaceutical Coding Systems Coding is
a system of assigning a unique identifier
for a product.
 A code is used to represent a product using
letters, numbers or their combinations.
Internal coding refers to the process of
assigning codes to pharmaceutical products
within the health facility so as to uniquely
identify them.

04/15/2025 2
 Drugs, laboratory reagents and medical supplies
should be internally coded in health facilities.
 The purpose of this coding is to ensure traceability of
medicines and transactions at any point of service
delivery.
 It also makes all types of pharmaceutical
transactions transparent, understandable and
auditable.

04/15/2025 3
 Coding is also extremely important to summarize
daily sales of dispensed medicines manually or using
cash registers and computers.
 Coding makes cost follow-ups of each medicine in a
health facility easier.
 Computerization of medicine transactions is much
easier when medicines have codes. National control
of medicines can also be greatly enhanced.

04/15/2025 4
 There are several possible ways of coding for
pharmaceuticals that can be utilized by health
facilities.
 Among the many alternatives, two of the coding
systems are described in module.
 Health facilities can use any one of the coding
systems depending on capacity and resources
available.

04/15/2025 5
3.2. Types of Internal Coding Systems Coding systems

are majorly classified by the type of characters

04/15/2025 6
Alpha-numeric coding system
Fixed
 Variable
Numeric coding system
a) Alpha Numeric Coding System:
This is a type of coding that uses letters and
numbers.
 Alpha-numeric coding system is constructed by using
the first 4 letters of the generic name of the product
followed by three digit numbers.
 See the following examples how to give letters for
the codes: Take the first four letters of the generic
04/15/2025 7
name of the compound:
Example: Amox for amoxicillin or Para for paracetamol
In cases of product names with adjectives in
the form of halogenations, methylations,
acetylations, etc… the first four letters of the
name of the parent compound is taken.
Example: Sali for acetyl salicylic acid and phen for
chlorphenyramine
 In cases drug combinations where the name
contains two separate words, take the first two
letters from each word.

04/15/2025 8
Example: amcl for amoxycilline + clavulanic acid arlu
for artemether + lumefantrine
If the name contains three separate words, the
first two letters from the first word and the first
letter from the second and third words.
Example: oxhp for oxytetracycline + hydrocortisone +
polymyxin B
 In cases where the name contains four separate
names, use the first letter from each word

04/15/2025 9
Example: mtah for magnesium trisilicate + aluminium
hydroxide).
Where there are pharmaceutical products which use
the same letters based on the above criteria, use
convenient codes to differentiate them. Examples:
quic for chloroquine and quin for quinine cpzn for
chlorpromazine and prom for promethazine dopm for
methyldopa and dopa for dopamine dopl for
levodopa, dopc for carbidopa barb for phenobarbitone

04/15/2025 10
 Next to the four letters, numbers are assigned based
on the strength, dosage form and/or cost of the
product.
Numbering starts from the smallest strength and
continues to the highest in ascending order.
 The numbers that come immediately after the letters
refer to the dosage form and strength of the product.

04/15/2025 11
 The letters and the numbers that represent the
dosage form make up the base code.
 The base code for tablets/capsules,
suspensions/syrups, injections, drops,
creams/ointments/pastes,suppositories/pessaries
and powders, etc. varies accordingly.

04/15/2025 12
The coding for medical supplies and laboratory reagents
& chemicals is based on their size, strength and volume.
Assignment of base code is similar to the above.
Example:
 Naga-70 for Naso gastric tube, infant size sterile (CH 4)
 Naga-71 for Naso gastric tube, infant size sterile (CH 6)
 Popa-73 for Plaster of Paris (7.5 cm x 3 m)
 Popa-74 for Plaster of Paris (10 cm x 3 m)

04/15/2025 14
Variable and fixed coding systems
 For a drug having the same generic name, strength
and dosage form but with different cost, the code
may or may not vary depending on whether the
facility uses fixed or variable coding system.
 In cases where variable coding is used, the last
numerical digit of the code of the product varies
according to the cost of the product by increasing
the last digit sequentially starting from number 1 for
the first price.
Example: The code of Amoxicillin 250 mg capsule with
a cost of 10 Birr is Amox01-1.
 If the cost of amoxicillin 250 mg capsule changes to
20 Birr, the code will be Amox01-2.

04/15/2025 15
In cases where we use fixed coding, the code remains
the same irrespective of variations of the cost. In
such situation, a product with a revised price cannot
be shelved for dispensing prior to finishing the
already existing one.
 In addition, when the product with the old price is
completed, announcement of cost variation is
mandatory before initiating of dispensing from the
product with the revised price.
 All dispensers using the sales ticket should
immediately note the change in price.
04/15/2025 16