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Pharmacy Tech Salary

WASHINGTON -- More than 7,000 applicants underwent testing in July to become certified as pharmacy technicians by the Pharmacy Technician certification Board, shattering the previous record for exam applicants. The throng of technicians seeking board certification provided striking evidence of the shifts underway in pharmacy practice as pharmacists broaden their patient-care and disease-management duties and come to rely more heavily on their pharmacy technicians for a growing list of dispensing and oversight skills.

The number of pharmacy technicians seeking certification has jumped as major chains, such as Walgreen Co., have embraced the concept of highly skilled staffers to assist their pharmacists. According to the PTCB, which was established in 1995 to develop and administer a national voluntary certification process for technicians, the 7,100 candidates who registered for the July 18 exam were more than double the number who registered the previous year.

The agency has already certified some 28,000 pharmacy technicians since July 1995, according to PTCB executive director Melissa Murer. "Major employers of pharmacy technicians are embracing the PTCB certification program," she said. "This leadership by employers, such as Walgreens, Kmart, Owen Healthcare and Schnuck's, not only encourages pharmacy technicians to take the PTCB examination, but also offers salary and reimbursement incentives to successful candidates."

The next certification test will be administered Nov. 14, with an application deadline of Sept. 18, according to Murer. Technicians can request a free copy of the 1998 Candidate Handbook and test application by contacting PTCB at (202) 4297576, or visiting the agency's web site at www.ptcb.org. The registration fee for the exam is $105.

The PTCB was set up through a yearlong joint effort by the American Pharmaceutical Association, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists and the Michigan Pharmacists Association. Its purpose, according to Murer is "... to create one consolidated voluntary national certification program for pharmacy technicians.

In a white paper on pharmacy technicians issued last fall, APhA executive vice president John Gans and Henri Manasse Jr., executive vice president of ASHP, noted jointly, "Long-term, pharmacy must work toward some degree of national standardization on a range of issues related to technicians. The current national certification program of the PTCB is one important step in that process."

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