When referencing the 'pha.rx.active.index', you'd expect the index to consist of only those pharmacy orders that were active.

Silly us!

MEDITECH actually stores two types of fields in this index, but only in a single special field: dc.date.or.active.

If the order has been discontinued, this field is a standard NPR date field.

If the order is still active, this field is defined as a tilda ('~')!

Once you know this, selecting active orders is easily done, as illustrated below.