Capability Statements, Capability Tracking
The following is proposed as a starting point for review by the PCS Implementation Committee scheduled to begin in 2025.
Capability Statements may be used as a mechanism to track features and functions that will be supported at various times by each implementer. These statements can facilitate communiation between implementers to convey their current capabilities and future/planned capabilities in a standardized way. The following provides an outline of how this may be implemented. Ultimately, this provides a technical approach for Pharmacy vendors, Adjudicators and Networks to share vital information that may be configurable within the Pharmacy or Adjudication application. The structure of the Capability Statement may be a standard JSON message.
The idea is that each implementer will update their capability statements with Target dates and definitive production dates for various capabilities. Production dates may be published in advance and will be used by sending systems to determine when they can turn on a particular feature. These can also be used by receiving systems to understand when they will start to receive a given message or type of functionality from the Pharmacy systems. The capability statements will be accessible to implementers through the FHIR restful API and implemented as part of PCS FHIR.
Benefit: This provides a standardized and programmable mechanism for implementers to share key information pertaining to the details of an implementation including the set of capabilities supported. Please refer to the FHIR site for further details found here.
At a high level, this capability statement can be used to confirm the FHIR version, messages and may be extended to convey any additional key data. It is a reliable FHIR mechanism to share key data and implementer constraints between partners. At it's core it is a declaration of support and it is flexible enough so that the PCS FHIR implementers can agree to a common set of data to share.
Folowing is a visual sample of the type data that will be shared (implemented in JSON) and published by each Pharmacy vendors and each Adjudicator.
Example - Adjudicator A - FHIR Capability Statement
Implementer Name: Adjudicator ABC
Implementer Software Verson: ABC-16754
Impelmenter Version: FHIR PCS 1.0.0
Capability Statement Date: November 4, 2025
| FHIR Feature Number | Capability Type | Capability Name | Mandatory or Optional Feature | Target Implementation Date | Production Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Message | Claim - Dispense | Mandatory | Jan 5, 2026 | Apr 1, 2026 |
| 2 | Message | Claim - Professional | Mandatory | Jan 5, 2026 | Apr 1, 2026 |
| 3 | Message | Reversal | Mandatory | Jan 5, 2026 | Apr 1, 2026 |
| 4 | Feature | Claims over 10K | Optional | Mar 10,2027 | |
| 5 | Feature | Send Prior Adjudication Details | Optional | Jan 5, 2026 | Apr 1, 2026 |
| 6 | Feature | Consume Compound Ingredients | Optional | Jan 5, 2026 | Nov 11, 2026 |
| 7 | Feature | Digital Signature, Provenance | 2027 |
The implementation committee will work together, post MVP to define the exact set of data thaey wish to share.