Certified Pharmacy Technician Requirements

So you want to become a certified pharmacy technician, well you’ll be happy to know that the requirements to become certified are pretty straight forward and easily obtainable. 

The first requirement of a certified pharmacy technician is schooling.  Don’t worry the schooling that is required of a certified pharmacy technician is nowhere near that of a pharmacist.  In fact to become certified you are only required to have your high school diploma, GED,  or its foreign equivalency.  That makes entry into the field with a profession designation easily obtainable for most people.

The next requirement for a certified pharmacy technician is a background check.  Even with this the pharmacy technician certification board is a little lenient, however the board will not accept anyone with a felony within the last 5 years or any drug related convictions period.   This requirement should be understandable because your day to day pharmacy technician duties will be to handle a multitude of prescribed drugs.   Another aspect that of will be under close scrutiny during the background process is that you haven’t been under restrictions for any State Board of Pharmacy at the time of application.  

  After meeting the above basic eligibility requirements the last and probably the most challenging step of becoming a certified pharmacy technician is passing the Pharmacy Technician Certification Test given by the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board or (PTCB).    This is a 90 question test that will judge your knowledge of assisting the pharmacist in servicing patients, maintaining and inventory control systems and  participation in administration and management of the pharmacy practice.

Passing this test and meeting all of the eligibility requirements above will ensure you the designation as a Certified Pharmacy Technician (CPhT).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Certification For Pharmacy Technician, Pharmacy Technician Test. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.