How to become a pharmacy technician

An occupation looking up in terms of overall demand, job profile of pharmacy technicians essentially entails making sense out of scribbles. Formal training and experience can fetch you decent earnings and job satisfaction. In fact, the job is so lucrative that some technicians are part-time workers, that is they work during late evenings, weekends and holidays only.

Where do pharmacy technicians work?

From hospitals and government organizations to independent and chain drug stores, health maintenance organizations, home health care, pharmaceutical manufacturers, etc., pharmacy technician job can be easily found at anyone of the workplaces under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist.  Pharmacy technician provides him/ her help in all the jobs that do not require his/ her expert know-how.  

The role of pharmacy technicians

The job profile of a pharmacy technician includes:

•  Providing health care products, including medicines, to patients of the licensed pharmacist;

•  Perform routine tasks to help prepare prescribed medication for patients by counting pills, measuring medications, and labeling products;

•  Verify every prescription from the doctor before it can be given to a patient;

•  Maintaining patient records and insurance information;

•  Technicians refer any questions regarding prescriptions, drug information, or health matters to a pharmacist.  

• Refer the patients who have questions about their medications to the pharmacist.

The job of pharmacist technician allows you to exercise your communication skills on daily basis, as people contact you for information about their medications and medical records. The job gives you a favorable impression as you wear a lab coat during working hours.  Besides learning something new on daily basis, the job enables you to continue your education to become a full fledged pharmacist or other health professional.  The best aspect of this job profile is that it promises job security, considering that a large part of the aging population utilizes prescription and non-prescription medications.  

Educational requirements

As regards education and training requirements, the Federal government has not laid down any compulsory training program to qualify as a Pharmacy technician. However, there is a National Pharmacy Technician Certification Exam, which can be taken by the aspirants. The pharmacy technician exam authenticates the acceptable standard of pharmaceutical knowledge in the candidate desiring to be certified pharmacy technician. For being a certified technician, a candidate needs to secure certification every 2 years, which is subject to the completion of a certain number of training hours.

Where to attain certification?

Further, there are private technical colleges and communities that provide certificates and/ or associate's degrees. The formal pharmacy technician training and certification is favored by prospective employers as its deemed to provide the acceptable knowledge to work in the industry. The longer pharmacy technician training programs provide you in-depth knowledge and fetch you better salary and brighter career prospects in the field.

The pharmacy technician certification and degree programs entail internship for students with one of the communities or hospital pharmacies. The internship helps them gain hands-on experience, which is preferred by the employers for obvious reasons. These formal programs impart useful information including pharmaceutical calculations, medical terminology, computer systems, and pharmacy billing.  

Salary

The salary offered to a beginner pharmacy technician is around $19,000 on an average, according to an estimate of the American Medical Association. However, the figure may vary based on the level of workplace and experience. However, the earning increase substantially with experience as one progresses from beginner to intermediate, and finally, to advance level technician.

As with salaries in most industries, the earnings can vary quite a bit depending where you work.