Technicians must recertify every 2 years by completing 20 hours of continuing education courses. Customer-service skills. Pharmacy technicians spend much of their time interacting with customers, so being helpful and polite is required of pharmacy technicians in a retail setting. Detail oriented. Serious health problems can result from mistakes in filling prescriptions.
Although the pharmacist is responsible for ensuring the safety of all medications dispensed, pharmacy technicians should pay attention to detail so that complications are avoided.
Listening skills. Pharmacy technicians must communicate clearly with pharmacists and doctors when taking prescription orders.
Math skills. Pharmacy technicians need to have an understanding of the math concepts used in pharmacies when counting pills and compounding medications. Organizational skills. Working as a pharmacy technician involves balancing a variety of responsibilities. Pharmacy technicians need good organizational skills to complete the work delegated by pharmacists while at the same time providing service to customers or patients.
Note: All Occupations includes all occupations in the U. Source: U. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. In May , the median annual wages for pharmacy technicians in the top industries in which they worked were as follows:.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections program. The population is aging, and older people typically use more prescription medicines than younger people. Higher rates of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, among all age groups also will lead to increased demand for prescription medications. Advances in pharmaceutical research will allow for more prescription medications to be used to fight diseases. In addition, pharmacy technicians will be needed to take on a greater role in pharmacy operations because pharmacists are increasingly performing more patient care activities, such as giving flu shots.
Technicians will need to perform tasks—such as collecting patient information, preparing more types of medications, and verifying the work of other technicians—that were previously done by pharmacists.
These estimates are available for the nation as a whole, for individual states, and for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. The link s below go to OEWS data maps for employment and wages by state and area. All state projections data are available at www. Information on this site allows projected employment growth for an occupation to be compared among states or to be compared within one state. CareerOneStop includes hundreds of occupational profiles with data available by state and metro area.
There are links in the left-hand side menu to compare occupational employment by state and occupational wages by local area or metro area. There is also a salary info tool to search for wages by zip code. This table shows a list of occupations with job duties that are similar to those of pharmacy technicians.
Medical assistants complete administrative and clinical tasks in hospitals, offices of physicians, and other healthcare facilities. Medical records and health information specialists organize, manage, and code health information data. Medical transcriptionists listen to voice recordings that physicians and other healthcare workers make and convert them into written reports. Pharmacists dispense prescription medications to patients and offer expertise in the safe use of prescriptions.
American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. For more information about state licensure laws, contact individual state Boards of Pharmacy, or visit. National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Pharmacy Technician Certification Board. National Healthcareer Association.
Pharmacy Technicians. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U. Last Modified Date: Wednesday, September 8, This allows the pharmacy technician to begin a career in healthcare with no secondary education. This is a nice benefit for someone who wants to work right out of high school. The downside to this situation is that the rate of pay is likely to be near minimum wage.
These positions are usually found in retail, privately owned, and mail order pharmacies. Most entry level pharmacy technician jobs offer a small yearly raise and paid vacation. Becoming certified is the fastest way for a pharmacy technician to give themselves an instant pay raise.
Most retail pharmacies offer a pay increase to any pharmacy technician who becomes certified. Pharmacy technician certification can be obtained by taking a standardized test called the ExCPT exam. On-the-job training may be enough to prepare some people for the ExCPT exam. For those who need more help, pharmacy technician training courses are available through many community colleges and private companies. Some large retail pharmacies and hospitals have their own training programs to prepare pharmacy technicians for certification.
Large companies which do not offer training programs will often reimburse employees for the cost associated with becoming certified. Nov 9, , am EST. Edit Story. Feb 27, , pm EST. Personal Finance. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Andrew DePietro.
0コメント