Are you looking for a career change? Perhaps you’re looking for a job that will utilize your customer service skills and attention to detail. Or, maybe you’re looking for a job that you know will help people, scratching that itch of wanting to make a difference. If you answered yes to these questions and hold a passion for healthcare, then a career as a pharmacy technician may be just the job for you.
To earn your Pharmacy Technician Board Certification you’ll need to make sure you meet the U.S. requirements, schedule, and complete the exam with a passing score.
Working alongside licensed pharmacists, pharmacy technicians work in a fast-paced environment, helping to fill prescriptions, field patient questions, and maintain a database. The best part about having a career as a pharmacy technician is that you have flexibility where you work, including in hospitals and retail establishments.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are approximately 453,630 pharmacy technicians working throughout the United States – and that number is expected to continue to grow by 5% between 2021 and 2031. That means there should be about 22,400 jobs in the market opening up for pharmacy technicians.
Now’s the time to jump on board this exciting career opportunity!
Continue reading to learn more about how to earn your pharmacy technician board certification in the United States, as well as what to expect once you graduate.
As briefly mentioned above, working as a pharmacy technician grants you a lot of versatility regarding where you can work. Not only does this make it easy for you to work in an environment you feel comfortable in, but it gives you greater options in terms of employment opportunities local to your home.
Pharmacy technicians usually work in one of the following environments, including hospitals, retail stores, nursing homes/assisted living facilities, or you even have the opportunity to work from home!
Here’s an overview of what a day-to-day could look like for you upon obtaining your pharmacy technician board certification:
As a pharmacy tech working in a hospital, you’re going to be exposed to a much faster-paced environment than a nursing home or retail location.
Though your day-to-day responsibilities will include filling prescriptions, maintaining a database, and answering patient questions, you may also need to know how to fill syringes and prepare IV solutions. This is because the majority of the medications fulfilled at the hospital are single doses.
If you’re considering working as a pharmacy technician in the hospital, keep in mind that you may have to work an evening or overnight shift. In some cases, this may even include weekends. Because hospitals operate 24/7, the pharmacies within them do, too.
Like pharmacies within the hospital, you will likely have to work weekend shifts at a retail establishment. In fact, many pharmacy technicians working in a retail setting work on a rotating schedule that combines day, evening, overnight, and weekend shifts. In some cases, like at the hospital, this may also include working on holidays.
As a pharmacy tech working in this environment, you will be responsible for taking medication inventory, processing medications, taking phone calls, processing patient insurance claims, taking payments, refilling dispensaries, as well as any other type of routine administrative work the job calls for like data entry.
Nursing facilities are similar to hospitals because oftentimes, the medications that pharmacy technicians are preparing are single doses. However, unlike a hospital setting, the environment is much more relaxed.
As such, your day-to-day will generally include routine tasks such as filling and preparing prescriptions, as well as receiving and inventorying orders. Individuals working in a nursing home or assisted living facility should be personable, as the job will include a lot of patient interaction.
The possibility of working from home continues to grow with companies across the nation. United Healthcare, Aetna, and Cigna all need the help of a pharmacy technician to process prescription claims, complete medication therapy management, and provide customer support.
Are you ready to get your pharmacy technician certification? If so, there are a few requirements you need to meet first.
Let’s get the basic stuff out of the way first. In order to obtain your pharmacy technician certification, you need to be a high school graduate or equivalent. Furthermore, to obtain certification, you should have a clean record.
This isn’t to say that you can’t obtain employment as a pharmacy technician with a record, but certain serious convictions may make finding employment difficult. If you’ve met these requirements, the next step is to take the Pharmacy Technician Certification Exam or PTCE.
In order to work as a pharmacy technician, you need to be certified. Students can do so by taking an exam provided by the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, or PTCB.
Passing this exam demonstrates your knowledge of the industry. It consists of 90 multiple-choice questions with 80 of them being scored questions and 10 of them being unscored and scattered throughout the exam.
The topics covered include medications, federal requirements, patient safety and quality assurance, and order entry and processing. It takes about two hours to finish including a five-minute tutorial and a five-minute post-exam survey.
If you answered yes to these questions above, then a career as a pharmacy technician may be just the job for you.
At Bryan University, we offer an accelerated Pharmacy Technician Certificate that will prepare you for your career.
We will teach you the skills needed to become a pharmacy technician, and we will even help with getting you an externship. We have a nationwide partnership with Walgreens and CVS Pharmacy that will provide our students with valuable hands-on experience needed to land a career upon graduation.
Bryan University gives you all of the tools to succeed at getting your pharmacy technician certification. If you enter the exciting world of being a pharmacy technician, then there’s no program better than what Bryan University offers.
Learn more about Bryan University’s Pharmacy Technician Certificate today!
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