Concerns about access to health care in the early 1960s led to the establishment of Medicare, Medicaid and other state medical assistance programs. As a result, the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) turned a major portion of its attention to government policies relating to access to prescription drugs. NPC developed a substantial body of information concerning government and third-party programs and established relationships with health care officials at the federal and state levels. Among the resources NPC developed was the “Compilation on State Welfare Drug Programs,” first published in 1963. This annual publication would later become NPC’s “Pharmaceutical Benefits Under State Medical Assistance Programs,” often referred to as “the Compilation.”

The data used to create each edition of the Compilation were assembled from numerous sources. The Compilation incorporated information on each state pharmacy program from an annual NPC survey of state Medicaid program administrators and pharmacy consultants, statistics from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and information from other Federal agencies and organizations.

Although the Compilation is considered an invaluable resource by many public officials and private analysts, NPC ceased publication in 2007, when the organization turned its direction to evidence-based medicine. Every edition of the Compilation is still available on NPC’s website.