Set up a Surescripts Medication History query from a pharmacy system to retrieve a patient's prescription fill history at point of dispensing

Verified steps

1. Complete the Surescripts Medication History for Pharmacy certification and execute the required data use agreement; obtain sandbox and production API credentials from the Surescripts developer portal
2. At the point of dispensing a new prescription, construct a Medication History request: include patient demographics (first name, last name, date of birth, gender) and patient consent status; Surescripts requires documented patient consent for medication history queries in most use cases
3. Submit the request to the Surescripts Medication History API endpoint; receive a structured response containing fill history records from participating pharmacies, PBMs, and payers—each record includes NDC, drug name, quantity, days supply, prescriber NPI, dispensing date, and dispensing pharmacy NPI
4. Parse the history response to identify potential drug-drug interactions, duplicate therapies, or adherence patterns; surface alerts to the pharmacist for clinical review before dispensing
5. Handle partial or no-history responses: not all fills are captured (some cash-pay fills, some non-participating pharmacies may have gaps); communicate to pharmacists that absence of history is not equivalent to absence of therapy
6. Log the query transaction ID and timestamp; retain query and response records per applicable state pharmacy law and Surescripts data use agreement requirements