A patient comes up with a new prescription in hand asking you, the technician, if it has to be taken with food. How do you answer?
There are limitations to the information a technician can provide to patients, even if the answer seems simple
It is your job as the technician to have a working knowledge of your scope of practice
What Does the Technician Do?
The pharmacy technician plays a critical role in the world of pharmacy, and few pharmacies could function without them
The technicians…
- Package and label prescriptions
- Compound sterile and nonsterile medications
- Input, verify, and process medical insurance
- Sell medications to customers
- Answer phone calls and questions within their scope
- Input new prescriptions
- Order medications for stocking
- Vaccinate patients (with proper certification)
- Refill dispensing equipment
- Repackage unit dose medications
Just from this list, you can see the scope of a technician’s career is fairly extensive and allows for the technician to assist with most tasks in the pharmacy
What The Technician CANNOT do
Let’s circle back to the question from earlier; the patient asks if their medication should be taken with food.
As the technician, you can not answer any questions concerning the safety of a medication. Only the pharmacist can answer these
Let’s compare some examples…
If the patient asks you something you are not able to answer, simply inform them you will alert a pharmacist to assist the patient
If the patient is upset you will not answer their question (unfortunately, it’s happened to me) remind them it is against the law for you to provide any medical advice as a technician
Here’s another scenario you’ll run into at a retail pharmacy…
You’re at the register counter and a patient asks “Where are your cold and flu medications?”
You walk them to the aisle and the patient surveys the bottles, asking which is better
As a technician, you CANNOT advise patients on over-the-counter medications, and at this point, you must direct the patient to the pharmacist
Other Pharmacist-Only Tasks
There are a few other tasks that only a pharmacist can complete
- Accept prescriptions over the phone
- Approve prescriptions that have been input into the pharmacy system
- Approve medication orders
- Provide medical advice about safety and use
- Advising patients on over-the-counter medication options