If you are looking for a career in the field of healthcare that will open up a wide door of opportunities and earning potential, then becoming a pharmacy technician is something that you may want to think about. As a pharmacy tech, your primary role is to provide assistance to a licensed pharmacist in order to ensure that the pharmacy is running smoothly and efficiently. You can expect to be involved in tasks such as preparing prescription medications, attending to customer needs, and providing assistance in administrative duties in the pharmacy. One of the best ways of becoming successful as a pharmacy tech is by undergoing a formal training program and receiving pharmacy tech certification.
A typical day for a pharmacy tech involves receiving prescription requests, labelling of medicine bottles, counting and weighing tablets, and mixing medications. Upon filling of a prescription, it will then be priced and filed, and then a licensed pharmacist proceeds to check if everything is complete and in order before the prescription drug is given to a patient. Besides working with prescription drugs, a pharmacy tech may also be involved with administrative tasks such as maintaining patient profiles, answering phone calls, performing inventory of medications, processing of insurance claim forms, and handling of cash register transactions.
Pharmacy techs work under the direct supervision of licensed pharmacists. Besides hospitals and retail/mail-order pharmacies, they may also find employment in medical stores, nursing homes, health and personal care stores, and in assisted living facilities as well. Work environment is also something to look forward to in this career because the workplace is usually somewhere that is clean, well—ventilated, organized, and well-lighted. Work schedules will vary depending on the place of employment, but it is not uncommon to be required to work on nightshifts, weekends, and holidays as well, especially in pharmacies that have 24-hour operating hours.
Even though there are no formal training requirements for pharmacy technicians, enrolling in a formal training program is recommended since it can provide an individual with a broad range of employment opportunities and a higher earning potential. Formal training programs for pharmacy technicians are offered in vocational schools, community colleges, and in select hospitals as well. These can be completed in as short as 6 months and as long as 2 years and usually consist of theoretical studies and laboratory work that tackles pharmacy law, pharmacy ethics, pharmaceutical terminology, pharmaceutical calculations, and pharmacy record keeping.
A career as a pharmacy technician also presents an individual with an excellent job outlook since employment is forecasted to increase by 31 percent through the year 2018 based on the statistics provided by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Since prescription drugs will always be in demand regardless of the economic situation, job security is generally not an issue for this career. Excellent employment opportunities await pharmacy technicians with a good educational and training background, adequate working experience, and certification. During the year 2008, the BLS reported average earnings for pharmacy techs at $13.32 per hour, while the lowest and highest 10 percent of the population had earnings of less than $9.27 per hour and more than $18.98 per hour respectively.