A pharmacy technician stands between the prescription arriving and the pharmacist checking it. Volume makes that hard: the accuracy has to be the same at the end of a shift as it was at the start, on every prescription in between.

Median Salaryof Pharmacy Technician

10%$17.00/hr

median$21.40/hr

90%$31.59/hr

Top Benefitsof Pharmacy Technician

Dental insurance100%
Vision insurance100%
Wellness programs100%
Employee discount64%
Health insurance36%

Medication histories are a technician job

Hospitals also put technicians at the bedside. In the emergency department they build medication histories: calling the patient's pharmacy, going through the bag from home, checking what the family remembers against what was last dispensed. A pharmacist usually reviews the list before it becomes the record a physician prescribes against. The job exists because incomplete admission histories have been traced to as much as a quarter of hospital prescribing errors, and technicians take more accurate histories than nurses do in the studies that compared the two.

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Your questions about pharmacy technician jobs, answered

What's the difference between a retail and a hospital pharmacy technician job?: Retail is a queue you can see: filling, clearing claim rejections, and people waiting. In a hospital nobody is standing in front of you. Technicians there stock automated cabinets, deliver to units, and prepare doses for inpatients, and a pharmacy that runs around the clock schedules them in rotating shifts, so nights and weekends come with it.
Do pharmacy technicians mix IVs?: In hospitals and infusion pharmacies, yes, though it's a specialty and not a general duty. Sterile compounding works to USP Chapter 797, which names technicians directly and puts repeat competency evaluation on the site, at 6-month intervals for Category 1 and Category 2 compounding and every 3 months for Category 3. Some employers prefer the CSPT credential on top, which takes an active PTCB certification plus compounding experience.
Which certification do pharmacy technician postings ask for?: Two exams lead to the same CPhT title: the one from PTCB, the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, and the National Healthcareer Association's ExCPT. Both are accredited, both are accepted in all 50 states, and the chains take either. PTCB is the older and much larger registry, so it's the one you'll see when a posting names only one. Our CPhT guide compares them.
What do postings mean by lead or senior pharmacy technician?: A technician who runs part of the operation. That can be scheduling, ordering and inventory, training new staff, or owning a specialty such as sterile compounding or prior authorizations. Employers generally want experience and current certification, and it's a step up that doesn't require going back to school.