Opioid National Drug Code and Oral MME Conversion File Update

Status Update: Discontinuation of Opioid NDC and Oral MME Conversion File

Concurrent with the release of the 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain (2022 Clinical Practice Guideline), CDC is discontinuing updating the file that contains opioid National Drug Codes (NDC) and opioid oral morphine milligram equivalent (MME) conversion factors (called the Opioid NDC and Oral MME Conversion File).

The 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline provides an MME conversion factors table for opioids which account for over 99% of opioid pain medications dispensed from 2018-2021 by retail pharmacies in the U.S. As such, this table is CDC’s sole resource related to MME conversion factors.

For a resource with National Drug Codes (NDCs), please see the RxNorm standard clinical drug vocabulary produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) of the National Institute of Medicine. This resource contains connections between National Drug Codes and standard nonproprietary names of medications. More information can be found here: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/drug-naming-standard-electronic-health-records-enhanced.

Please Note: Consult the FDA approved product labeling for specific guidance on medications. Do not use the calculated dose in MMEs to determine the doses to use when converting one opioid to another. See the full list of cautions included in the 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline table.

Please see our webpage for additional information about the 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline.