How many techs at your store?

[pharmgrl5]

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I'm curious to know how many pharmacy technicians work at a typical store. It doesn't matter to me if you work at a drug store like Walgreens or CVS or you work at a grocery store like Kroger or Albertsons. I'm just interested in seeing how many are employeed typically. I'm asking because I just got hired to a grocery store and I was told that they are going to have only 3 techs for the pharmacy. I thought that was a bit odd, the pharmacy is open around 85-90 hours/week and I'm not aware of any clerks being hired for the pharmacy. (the store isn't open yet) How do they expect 3 techs to cover all those shifts and be functional?

I've made this a poll in case someone doesn't have time to respond with a post but wants to participate. 😀

 

[Transformer]

I'm curious to know how many pharmacy technicians work at a typical store. It doesn't matter to me if you work at a drug store like Walgreens or CVS or you work at a grocery store like Kroger or Albertsons. I'm just interested in seeing how many are employeed typically. I'm asking because I just got hired to a grocery store and I was told that they are going to have only 3 techs for the pharmacy. I thought that was a bit odd, the pharmacy is open around 85-90 hours/week and I'm not aware of any clerks being hired for the pharmacy. (the store isn't open yet) How do they expect 3 techs to cover all those shifts and be functional?

I've made this a poll in case someone doesn't have time to respond with a post but wants to participate. 😀

It is safe to assume 3 to 4 techs on each retail pharmacy stores' payroll is the average. You will see that Each 8 hour shift will include 1 tech, 1 pharmacist, and many clerks (3 to 5).

During change of shift, there will be 2 to 3 hours of overlap where you have 2 techs and 2 pharmacists working at the same time.

 

[Wan2BPharmD]

We have tons of techs. Lemme see...9 or 10...and just about as many clerks... but obviously not working all at once. We have a busy store, sometimes doing over 900+ scripts a day, and sometimes even 500+ on the weekends. To work comfortably on, say...a Tuesday afternoon/evening, we would have 3 pharmacists, 3-4 techs, and 3-4 clerks.

 

[collegegirl247]

12!!
...but we never have more than one pharmacist at a time.
This is at a super busy 24 hour cvs

 

[pharmstud07]

12!!
...but we never have more than one pharmacist at a time.
This is at a super busy 24 hour cvs

That's crazy! In Florida we have a 3:1 ratio law, which means only 3 "techs" per pharmacist on duty.

Yay... I have reached 100 posts.😀

 

[AngelaCL]

We have 6, but 3 of them only work 1 shift a week (4-7 hours). Two of us work around 20 hours a week, and there's one full-time tech that works 30 hours a week. Altogether, I think our store uses around 80 tech hours a week, and we're open 88 hours a week. The pharmacist doesn't have a tech the first or last two hours each day Mon-Saturday, and doesn't have a tech the first four hours Sunday.

Oh, and we have 2 full time pharmacists and several floats - at least two float shifts a week but often we get extra.

 

[pharmgrl5]

So from others' experience, if our store has hired 3 techs to cover 85-90 hours/week and about 2 pharmacists (there might be 3 but I'm thinking it's just 2) does that mean that we'll likely be alone each shift? I don't know about clerks yet, it wasn't mentioned to me when I last talked to the manager and I didn't think to ask. I've got to assume though that there will be some at least. All 3 techs are considered part time but at this particular company part time means anything from 1-40 hours/week. 40+ hours is full time and the pharmacists are 45/week on a salary (not hourly pay). So theoretically I could end up working 40/week. I'm dying to know why my shifts will be like, will I be the only tech there and for how many hours....

I also want to ask a possibly dumb question what is the difference between a pharmacy clerk and a pharmacy technician? As far as what they do? I do understand what a tech does but am not clear on what a clerk can do.

 

[anteater07]

I work at CVS (2000-2500 scripts per week) and we have:

11 techs: 8 students (almost all from UCI haha) and 3 non-students
3 clerks: 2 students (high school) and 1 non-student

My pharmacy manager encouraged all of his students to take the PTCE to become techs...

On some days, we have all techs working and no clerks...

 

[anteater07]

I also want to ask a possibly dumb question what is the difference between a pharmacy clerk and a pharmacy technician? As far as what they do? I do understand what a tech does but am not clear on what a clerk can do.

Techs are allowed to fill/reconstitute/mix medications and clerks can't...

Clerks are allowed to type prescriptions if allowed by the pharmacist and usually spend their time at the cash register.

My pharmacy manager lets his clerks type prescriptions because he wants them to learn brand/generics, insurance problems, etc...to better prepare them for pharm school.

 

[thesteve1]

Only 5 techs at the wal-mart I work at, but supposedly we are understaffed. I don't know the shift specifics cause today was my first day! it seems as if titles of "clerk vs. tech" have no significance whatsoever cause everybody seemed to do everything.

 

[pillpharmer]

We have 13 techs at our store...but we're the only 24 hour retail pharmacy in town.

 

[SGPharmD]

We have 7 techs, but only 2 are full time. The rest of us are part time and get shuffled around. We usually have 2 techs and 1 pharmacist on at a time.

 

[anb]

I work at Target and we have 4 but only 2 are full time

 

[Surrah]

haha the pharmacy i work at only has one rarely two!! i live in a small town though

 

[WildlifeSaver]

Sometimes on one shift we have one tech and just one pharmacist and a day were we have 250 scripts which is freaken chaotic. Our pharmacist is like 52 years old and sometimes I worry about him especially when he jumps over the counter and does his freak out thing...the stories I could tell you, you wouldn't believe me.