If you want to join the healthcare industry without spending much time over training and education, you can consider being a pharmacy technician. To become a pharmacy technician, you will need only a little formal training. The most important benefit of becoming a pharmacy technician is you can always find the job easily. However, this job is among the low paying jobs in the healthcare industry. Many people take these jobs to enter the healthcare field and get more training to reach the better paying jobs in the same field.
What is a Pharmacy technician?
A pharmacy technician is the person who works for a licensed pharmacist. He or she is under the direct supervision of the licensed pharmacist. The pharmacy tech performs several pharmacy related jobs such as providing prescription drugs and other healthcare products to people. They may also get employment in the doctor’s offices and insurance companies. A pharmacy technician’s job has very light responsibilities and they are not much stressed unless they are working in a big hospital. However, sometime, these technicians are required to stand for a long time at stretch and they can be even given the duty of lifting and carrying heavy boxes filled with medicines.
Description of Pharmacy Technician Job
If you get a pharmacy technician’s job in any retail pharmacy or drug store, you can expect typical responsibilities.
- Receiving prescriptions
- Receiving request from patients for prescription refills and processing those.
- Before providing any medicines to the patients, it is the responsibility of the pharmacy technician to check the prescription brought by the patients to see that it is complete and accurate. These days, some doctors send prescriptions directly to the pharmacy via email or fax.
- The pharmacy technician prepares the medication as per the prescription. This process involves retrieving medication, counting, measuring, pouring, weighing and sometimes mixing of the ingredients to make right medication.
- Once medication is prepared, he may be required to prepare the containers. For this, they need to make labels according to the prescription.
- Once this process of preparation of prescription is complete, the process of pricing and billing starts. Another important job is to get everything checked by the pharmacist before giving it the patients.
However, this is not the comprehensive list of responsibilities a pharmacy tech performs. These resposnsibilities may be extended or cut back according to the requirements of the healthcare facility and the state regulations. For instance, pharmacy techs who work in larger healthcare facilities such as hospitals, nursing homes or assisted living may have more responsibilities.
Pharmacy Technician salary
Usually, pharmacy technicians work 40 hours a week if they are employed in a full-time job. They can opt for part-time jobs also, choosing morning or evening shifts. In 2008, average hourly salary of a pharmacy tech was around $13.32, which works out as $27,705.6 annually for a 40 hours week. Since the demand is growing, you can expect an increase in this average salary every year. Moreover, you can add to this income by working overtime, in the evenings or weekends, holidays etc. If you are employed in a larger organization, you can expect many added benefits such as paid leave, health insurance, travel allowances and more.
Career Outlook for Pharmacy Technician
After becoming a pharmacy technician, you can get job very quickly and easily, as positions are always vacant as people keep moving for other job opportunities. However, there is one disadvantage of pharmacy technician job is there is not much scope for advancement in this field. Some efficient and more qualified pharmacy technicians get promotion to become supervisors, nuclear pharmacy, technician chemotherapy technician, or sales. However, the good thing is you can advance your career by pursuing extensive training to become a qualified pharmacist. Since a pharmacy tech’s job is not at all stressful, you can find time to pursuer more training. Many students are getting confused between pharmacy and ultrasound. The only difference between pharmacy technicians and ultrasound technician is that, sonographers work on pregnancy ladies and they check babies. And pharmacists prepare drugs for the patients.
Workplace Options
You can look for the pharmacy tech’s job at various places such as retail pharmacy, private clinics, hospitals, pharmacy wholesalers, internet pharmacy and more. The retail pharmacy stores produce most of the pharmacy technician jobs. These people work in clean and comfortable settings. The environment is quite safe and organized for working of the people.
How to become a pharmacy technician
How to become a pharmacy technician? To become a pharmacy technician, you do not require any formal pharmacy technician training though it would help to get a job quickly. However, some states require aspirants to complete a few months’ training. This training can be obtained in either an approved school or on-the-job working under the direct supervision of a pharmacist. After completing the training, you can consider getting certification through PTCB or ExCPT. Even if your state does not require the formal training or certification, having one makes it easy for you to get a job.
Pharmacy technician training
Most of these technicians are hired by their employers to be trained on the job. This training may last for 3 to 12 month depending upon the healthcare facility. Furthermore, the aspirants for this job can get basic Pharmacy technician training at places like different community colleges, vocational schools, hospitals, and the military. This training may take anything between 6 to 24 months depending upon the program they are offering. Most programs combine classrooms as well as laboratory sessions to provide them the required knowledge and experience.
The course offered during these training programs includes medicine and medical terminologies, pharmacy law and pharmacy ethics, pharmaceutical techniques and record keeping. At the end of a program or just after completing the program, you may be assigned some responsibilities in a pharmacy to provide you on-the-job training. Depending upon the program you chose to pursue, you will qualify to receive pharmacy technician certificate, a diploma, or an associate degree.
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Pharmacy Technician Registration
After the completion for your training, you should apply for registration with State board of Pharmacy. However, for registration, you need not be certified. You are only required to pay the registration fee and submit your high school diploma.
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