PTCB Pharmacy Technician (PTCE) — All Questions

A prescriber's office telephones a new prescription and the pharmacist takes it. Which step most reliably catches a transcription error during that call?

• a.Asking the caller to spell only the patient's last name.
• b.Reading the complete order back to the caller, including strength, dose and frequency.✓
• c.Entering the order quickly so the caller is not kept waiting.
• d.Writing the order down and comparing it to the patient's last refill.

A read-back of the complete order gives the caller the chance to hear and correct a misheard drug name, strength or frequency while still on the line. Spelling only the patient's name does not check the drug, speed increases the chance of mishearing, and comparing with a previous refill cannot validate a therapy the patient has never had.

A patient returns to the counter saying this month's tablets look different from last month's. What is the appropriate first step?

• a.Compare the NDC and manufacturer with the previous fill, then get the pharmacist.✓
• b.Reassure the patient that all generics look the same and complete the sale.
• c.Replace the tablets with the previous manufacturer's product without checking anything.
• d.Tell the patient to take the new tablets for a week and call back if anything happens.

Checking the NDC and manufacturer answers the question with a record rather than a reassurance, and if the drug or strength is wrong the error is caught before the patient leaves; the pharmacist then explains a legitimate manufacturer change or investigates a real error. Generic products from different makers often do look different, swapping stock blindly hides rather than resolves the question, and telling the patient to wait a week risks a week of a wrong medicine.

What should the technician leave with a completed prescription so the pharmacist can perform a meaningful final verification?

• a.The stock bottle alone, because its NDC already identifies everything that matters.
• b.Only the filled container, since the label is attached to it.
• c.The filled container and the patient's insurance card.
• d.The prescription, label, filled vial and stock bottle.✓

The pharmacist's final check compares four things: what was ordered, what the label says, what is in the vial and what it was counted from, so all four have to be present. A vial by itself cannot be checked against the order, an insurance card says nothing about the product, and a stock bottle alone shows what was on the shelf but not what was actually dispensed or directed.

A patient profile records an allergy to 'sulfa'. Which new prescription should be routed to the pharmacist before it is filled?

• a.metformin 500 mg tablets
• b.amoxicillin 500 mg capsules
• c.sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim DS tablets✓
• d.azithromycin 250 mg tablets (Z-Pak)

Sulfamethoxazole is a sulfonamide antimicrobial, exactly the class a documented sulfa allergy refers to, so the pharmacist assesses it before the prescription is filled. Metformin is a biguanide, amoxicillin is a penicillin and azithromycin is a macrolide; none of the three belongs to the sulfonamide class.