What Is a Pharmacy Technician?
Pharmacy technicians work alongside pharmacists and pharmacy aides, either in retail pharmacies or directly in hospitals or other medical care facilities. Pharmacy technicians have more training than pharmacy aides, so if they do work alongside aides, they will be responsible for overseeing them.
Unlike an aide, a pharmacy technician is allowed to mix and bottle medications, and aides are usually required to do lower-level administrative tasks such as organize paperwork or run the cash register. However, when a pharmacy technician works in a facility without pharmacy aides, he or she may be responsible for those types of administrative jobs as well.
Pharmacy technicians receive prescriptions and make sure that the information in the prescription is accurate. They then fill the prescription by counting and bottling the required amount of tablets. They may also mix some medications in-house. Technicians then price the prescription and log the filled order into the pharmacy system for pick-up. Pharmacy technicians may also be responsible for maintaining patient information and medical records.
How to Become a Pharmacy Technician
There is no national training requirement for pharmacy technicians. However, many students choose to purse a associate pharmacy degree in order to better their hiring potential and increase their worth in the market. Most employers do prefer to hire pharmacy technicians who have a degree, or at least a pharmacy technician certification from a respected program.
Coursework for a pharmacy degree should cover areas such as pharmacy law and ethics, pharmaceutical terminology, medication mixing and calculation and patient record keeping. Pharmacy technicians must also learn the names, uses and suggested doses of a wide range of medications.
Once students have an associate degree, certification is voluntary. Individuals can become certified by taking exams through either the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) or the Institute for the Certification of Pharmacy Technicians (ICPT). Once certified, pharmacy technicians are required to complete 20 hours of continuing education every two years in order to keep their certifications up to date.
Pharmacy Technician Career Outlook & Salary
The career outlook for pharmacy technicians will be very good from 2008 to 2018. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there should be about a 31% increase in employment during the 2008-18 decade. Out of the pharmacy technicians surveyed by the Bureau, about 75% of all workers were employed in a retail setting, and around 16% worked in hospitals.
The 31% increase in employment for pharmacy technicians is a rate of growth that is much higher than most other professions in the United States. This potential for employment growth can be attributed to an increasing number of middle-aged and elderly people in the population who will be much more likely to need and use more prescription drugs than younger people.
Pharmacy technicians are usually paid an hourly wage. In 2008, the median hourly wages for pharmacy technicians in the U.S. were $13.32 an hour. The highest 10% of employees surveyed earned over $18.98, and the lowest 10% earned less than $9.27 per hour.
