Certification Tester: A Game Changer for Your NCPDP Upgrade

With our “self-driving” Certification Tester, you don’t need anyone looking over your shoulder on video (hey, there!) as you run test cases to achieve National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) certification on the new standard.

Certification Tester has already enabled upgrades for two companies—D.A.W. Systems, Inc. for prescriber-initiated messages and Scriptly for RxTransfer—making them the first electronic health record (EHR) vendor and the first pharmacy technology vendor, respectively, to achieve certification based on the new NCPDP SCRIPT Standard v2023011.

Certification Tester came out of our 2025 customer experience initiatives to innovate and streamline processes. Here’s how this tool can help get you started on a successful upgrade.

Get Immediate Validation

As my colleague Larry King said in a Q&A about upgrading the NCPDP SCRIPT standard, our investment in testing tools includes the user-friendly, “self-driving” Certification Tester. With access to this tool, you can get immediate, real-time feedback on your test cases—pass or fail—and adjust accordingly.

Being able to work through testing at your own pace and get immediate validation is why I believe Certification Tester is a game changer.

What’s In It for Surescripts Network Alliance Participants?

Using Certification Tester on the NCPDP upgrade will improve the overall experience, with:

• incremental, smaller test steps;
• self-serve testing that can be stopped and restarted as needed; and
• real-time feedback, allowing for faster issue remediation.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published its final rule in June 2024, requiring organizations to adopt these standards: Formulary & Benefit v60 by January 1, 2027; Real-Time Prescription Benefit v13 by January 1, 2027; and SCRIPT v2023011 by January 1, 2028.

Our collaboration on testing and certification serves two purposes: (1) comply with CMS regulations and (2) elevate the Surescripts Network Alliance above industry standards. How does e-prescribing help improve medication safety? That’s how.

And it’s all for the good of patients and those who care for them.