Pharmacy Technician Training

Pharmacy technicians are the front-end persons you will find in pharmacies. They actually perform the daily routine work of dispensing medicines - getting prescriptions, verifying their completeness, locating the medications, counting, weighing or otherwise measuring it. They'll usually prepare the prescription labels, decide on a ideal container and label it. The filled prescription medication will then be priced, filed and checked by a pharmacist prior to being given to the patient.

In effect, a pharmacy technician's position consists of helping the pharmacists with the daily routine work of filling prescriptions. The position mandates training and certification to be familiar with prescription medications, verify their accuracy and completeness, choosing the right medicines along with filling the order which demands attending to all the right procedures. Pharmacy technicians will probably talk with patients and directly with doctors. They must be capable to interpret doctors' handwriting and assess that the prescription makes sense.

Pharmacy technician tasks are more than merely filling pills and drugs into packages. Technicians will likely have to mix the medication. Where they may have any doubts or questions, they have to refer those to the pharmacist. Meaning they need to understand or know when and how to ask the right questions!

Other Technical Pharmacy Duties

As well as filling prescriptions, drug dispensing also involves stuff like:

• Creating and maintaining patient profiles
• Preparing insurance claim paperwork
• Examining patient charts at hospitals, organizing and delivering the prescriptions for the patients (after verification by a pharmacist)
• Preparing the medication delivery to prevent mistakes (by putting together a 24 hour supply of medications for every patient, packaging and labeling each dosage separately in the patient's medicine cabinet), and getting the packages verified by the pharmacist

It is typically the pharmacy technician's job to stock the prescribed medication and over-the-counter meds in the pharmacy storage bins, and to take inventory frequently. Pharmacy aides will help the technician in these along with other routines which include keeping accounts, answering phones and handling money.

Pharmacy Technician Training

As mentioned from above, the pharmacy technician job requires less drug-related education than is needed for a pharmacist but a good deal more knowledge compared to what a layperson would have.

You are required to become a accredited pharmacy technician by passing an exam to be qualified to apply for a pharmacy technician position. Pharmacy technician training provides the trainees the skill sets and practical knowledge necessary to conduct the level of work described previously.

When finishing pharmacy technician training, you'd typically have to acquire a state license to work as pharmacy technician. Pharmacy technicians also need to attend state specific hrs of continuing education via classes to be eligible for re-certification every 2 yrs.

Pharmacy Technician Job Prospects

With an aging adult population, who generally use more prescription medication, indicates that there will be a growing demand for pharmacy technicians. New drug advancements, for treating increasingly more diseases, also indicates greater importance of trained technicians which can fill prescriptions correctly.

Wherever likely, companies will prefer to employ the more cost-effective pharmacy technician than a highly skilled (and therefore costly) pharmacist whenever it seems sensible. During the coming years, pharmacy technician jobs are forecast to grow faster than the majority of job categories.