Does a Pharmacy Technician Career Need Training?

A pharmacy technician position requires less drug-related expertise than is required for a pharmacist but alot more education than what a regular individual has.

Pharmacy technicians are often the persons you will see within pharmacies. They in fact perform the scheduled job of allotting pills – receiving prescriptions, checking their correctness, finding the prescription medication, counting, weighing or otherwise measuring it. They usually prepare the prescription labeling, pick out a appropriate bottle and label it. The filled medical prescription will be priced, recorded and checked by a pharmacist before being made available to the patient.

You must be a accredited pharmacy technician by passing an examination to be qualified to apply for a pharmacy technician job. Pharmacy technician training gives the trainees the skills and practical knowledge required to perform the type of work explained earlier.

Following getting technical school education, an associate diploma, or work training, the technician takes a certification exam. Tests are available by 2 certifying organizations in the United States. The first is the Pharmacy Technician Certification Exam (PTCE), which will be provided by the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB). The second is the Exam for the Certification of Pharmacy Technician (ExCPT) supplied by the Institute for the Certification of Pharmacy Technicians (ICPT). Following successful completion of the exam, the candidate is granted certification. The technician will also need to complete continuing education to keep up certification.

The profession has different educational and certification requirements in different places, set by each state’s Board of Pharmacy.

Pharmacy Technician Training and Careers are Growing

Pharmacy technicians are the front-end persons you see at pharmacies. It is they who actually do the routine work of dispensing medicines – receiving prescriptions, checking for their completeness, retrieving the medication, counting, weighing or otherwise measuring it as well as preparing the prescription labels, selecting a suitable container and labeling it. The filled prescription is then priced, filed and checked by a pharmacist before being given to the patient.

In effect, pharmacy technician jobs involve helping the pharmacists with the routine tasks of filling prescriptions. The job requires training and certification to understand prescriptions, check their accuracy and completeness, select the right medicines and fill the order which involves attending to all the correct formalities. Pharmacy technicians may also interact with patients and directly with doctors. They must be able to decipher doctors’ handwriting and check that the prescription makes sense.

Pharmacy technician tasks are more than merely filling tablets and capsules into packets. Technicians might even be required to mix the medication. Where they have any doubts or questions, they must refer these to the pharmacist. That means they must know when and how to ask the right questions!

Other Technical Pharmacy Routines

In addition to filling prescriptions, drug dispensing also involves things like:

• Creating and maintaining patient profiles
• Preparing insurance claim forms
• Reading patient charts at hospitals, preparing and delivering the medicines to the patients (after verification by a pharmacist)
• Organizing the medication delivery to avoid mistakes (by assembling a 24 hour supply of medicines for each patient, packaging and labeling each dose separately in the patient’s medicine cabinet), and getting the packages checked by the pharmacist

It is typically the pharmacy technician’s job to stock the prescription and over-the-counter drugs in the pharmacy shelves, and to take inventory periodically. Pharmacy aides will help the technician in these and other routines such as keeping accounts, answering phones and handling money.

Pharmacy Technician Training

As stated from the above, the pharmacy technician role require less drug-related knowledge than is needed for a pharmacist but much more knowledge than what a layperson has.

You have to become a certified pharmacy technician by passing an exam to be eligible for a pharmacy technician job. Pharmacy technician training gives the trainees the skills and knowledge needed to perform the kind of work discussed above.

After completing the pharmacy technician training, you would typically have to get a state license to work as pharmacy technician. Pharmacy technicians have also to attend specified hours of continuing education through contact classes to be eligible for re-certification every two years.

Pharmacy Technician Job Prospects

A growing and older population, who typically use more medication, means that there will be an increasing demand for pharmacy technicians. New drug discoveries, for treating more and more conditions, also mean greater need for trained technicians that can fill prescriptions correctly.

Wherever possible, employers will prefer to employ the less expensive pharmacy technician than a highly trained (and consequently expensive) pharmacist if it makes sense.

In the coming years, pharmacy technician jobs are estimated to grow faster than most other job categories.

Pharmacy Technician – A Deeper Look

In the past when you went into a pharmacy having to get a prescription filled, you would have found that your prescription was really filled by the present pharmacists. However, over the last number of years a change has happened in the pharmacist sector and that change is, “a pharmacist most likely no longer fills your prescriptions”. Though pharmacists are on duty wherever medications are dispensed; today more often than not, a pharmacy technician or pharmacy assistant are the ones filling prescriptions.

Pharmacy Technicians and assistants have been around for a while however their positions have changed for a number of reasons.

An important reason is that they help to reduce healthcare costs because they get paid a lot less than a certified pharmacist. Another significant factor is that it just makes sense. Pharmacy technicians and assistants are educated to handle routine work (fill prescriptions and customer care), which usually frees up the pharmacists to focus more of their time on supervisory responsibilities, in addition to patient care.

Melissa Murer, Executive Director of the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, put it in this way, “Pharmacists are becoming more focused on patient care, so pharmacy technicians are important to execute more of the distributive functions.”

Typically, they assist licensed pharmacists by delivering medication and health care to patients as a result of preparing and filling prescriptions along with doing clerical tasks. Duties are similar but pharmacy technicians usually have additional responsibilities. In addition, technicians and assistants must be closely supervised by a licensed pharmacist, however the laws defining what “being supervised” implies, can vary by state.

Together with having all their prescriptions checked by a pharmacist, technicians and assistants also need to direct all patient questions on drug data, health matters or prescriptions to the pharmacist.

Pharmacy technicians observe precise procedures whenever filling prescription medications. After receiving a prescription or refill request, they need to ensure that medical prescription information is accurate and then count, pour, retrieve, weigh, measure and if necessary, mix the required medicines for the prescription. The next step is to create and affix labels on the correct container. After filling the prescription the technician will price and file it. Another important part of a technician’s job is to start preparing patient insurance documentation, set up and maintain patient profiles.

In retail stores, technicians will also stockpile and do inventory of medication (both prescription and over-the-counter), maintain machinery and help oversee the till.

In numerous medical facilities, technicians have the job to read the doctors orders within the patients’ chart, prepare and then deliver the medication after it has been checked by a pharmacist. They may also input information regarding patients’ medical records (regarding medication) or assemble a supply (normally 24 hours) of medicine for patients, along with the labeling and packaging for each dose. Each package is examined by the managing pharmacist before being made available to a patient.

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