Jonesboro, AR — (JonesboroRightNow.com) — July 24, 2025 — If you have ever picked up a prescription or called a pharmacy, chances are you had a pharmacy technician help you.
Pharmacy technician jobs were originally created to help assist the pharmacist with daily tasks such as inventory, medication dispensing and general upkeep of the pharmacy. While these duties have remained, pharmacy technician roles and responsibilities have expanded exponentially to accommodate the advancement of clinical pharmacy and direct patient care.
From Assistant to Technician
In the early days of pharmacy (pre-1990s), there were a limited number of drugs to dispense, and pharmacists would do everything: transcribe prescriptions from a physician’s paper onto a label, check for drug interactions, dispense medications, collect payments from patients and answer any questions.
Some pharmacists chose to employ pharmacist assistants to help with simple daily tasks. Today, with a plethora of drugs available on the market plus more clinical roles pharmacists have taken on, it takes a lot more than a pharmacist with occasional help to run a pharmacy.
It became clear that there needed to be a sort of “extension” to the pharmacist in order for patients and other healthcare providers to still have full accessibility to a pharmacist’s expertise. A technician who can field phone calls, refill prescriptions, bill insurance, and dispense prescriptions while the pharmacist supervises and makes time to answer clinical questions and perform patient-based clinical care.
Insurance & Point of Care Testing
Daily nuances of billing insurance for prescription drugs and interactions with patients at point of sale have translated into a comprehensive understanding of prescription insurances and how they affect patients directly.
Technicians and pharmacists, like the ones here at Super V Drugs, have expanded their knowledge even further with training and licensing as a health insurance agent. Trusted health professionals who are already fluent in pharmacy lingo and know you and your prescription medications make the process of choosing your insurance plan effortless. In the market for a new Medicare plan? Call or stop by Super V Drugs for more information!
Due to the rapid growth of COVID-19 infections in the U.S., pharmacies expanded their use of CLIA-waived testing exponentially since 2019 to identify positive patients to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
Implementation and expansion of this service led to Arkansas pharmacists adopting a state-wide protocol that now allows pharmacists to perform point of care testing for flu and strep and treat positive cases with anti-infectives.
Pharmacy technicians can perform these tests while the pharmacist interprets patient symptoms, test results and history to determine treatment. Next time you’re feeling under the weather, give us a call and see about our curbside testing right from your car!
Vaccines & Medication Packaging
Along with the urgent need for testing, the pandemic brought the need for more immunizers to administer the COVID-19 vaccine and in October 2020 pharmacy technicians were federally authorized under the PREP Act to give them to those 3 years and older. Since this temporary authorization, several studies have shown that pharmacy technicians administering vaccines has been a positive change.
As of March 2021, Arkansas pharmacy technicians are authorized to administer any vaccine to patients as young as 3 years of age under the direct delegation by a pharmacist. Product selection, preparation and appropriateness are reviewed by a pharmacist prior to a technician administering a vaccine. Super V Drugs is able to offer quick, walk-in vaccines thanks to the help of our trained technician!
The multitude of prescription drugs available on the market parallels the number of medications that patients use on a daily basis multiple times a day. Several pharmacies have adopted a way to help patients manage their medication easily using adherence packing such as Dispill or similar products.
Medication refills are managed for you ahead of time, billed to your insurance and sorted into your preferred time slots by a trained technician with a final check from a pharmacist. Talk to Megan or Mollie about getting started with our Dispill program!
How Pharmacy Technicians Help:
- Decrease Pharmacist Workload:
- By being a pharmacist “extension,” pharmacy technicians are able to take on noncritical roles of pharmacists and ultimately allow the pharmacist to concentrate on clinical outcomes for patients.
- Decrease Wait Times:
- Pharmacy technicians are able to perform most tasks independently up until a final check from a pharmacist, speeding up most processes and decreasing patient wait times.
- Increase Safety:
- A required final check by a pharmacist usually involves more than one person looking at the task, therefore accuracy and quality are validated.
There’s a reason some pharmacies operate smoother than others and that is largely due to their technicians. From prescription drop off to pick up, technicians are at the forefront of pharmacies building trusting relationships with patients while expanding their roles in the pharmacy to help better serve those patients.
Give a shoutout to a pharmacy technician you know and give them some recognition for all that they do!