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What are NDC numbers?
What are NDC numbers?

We use NDCs to help you find the right medication to track in Folia

Nell Meosky Luo avatar
Written by Nell Meosky Luo
Updated over a week ago

Hello there! 

You're likely reading this article because you're looking to add a new medication to Folia, and you encountered this new acronym - the NDC number. 

You don't need to know the NDC number! Search to add treatments either by name or the NDC number.

If you're still curious:

NDC stands for National Drug Code. It's a number with 10, 11, or 14 digits and some dashes that serves as the single ID number for every drug that the FDA has looked at.

The reason we like the NDC is that it is highly specific. If you give us the first 8 digits of the NDC, we know exactly what medication you're trying to pick.

This is way easier than name-based searching, which often shows dozens of different versions of the same medication.

So how do you find the NDC?

Look on your medication. If it's a prescription, the federal government requires that the NDC is listed somewhere on the packaging. It will look like this:

NOTE: The NDC is NOT the same as the number listed on top of the bar code, even though they might look similar.

When you type the NDC number in, you don't need to use dashes for searching.

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