{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/pharmacy-aides/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Pharmacy Aides",
    "soc_code": "31-9095",
    "category": "Healthcare Support",
    "us_employment": 39530,
    "median_annual_wage": 37680
  },
  "verdict": "COOKED",
  "risk_resistance": 28,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 8,
    "embodiment": 10,
    "liability_shield": 3,
    "trust_premium": 5,
    "judgment_accountability": 2
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "At 8 the split is real but lopsided: refill call intake, prior-auth faxing, and third-party claim resubmission are already absorbed by IVR and e-prescribing networks, while receiving wholesaler totes, checking invoices against the pack, rotating short-dated stock off the shelf, and bagging will-call orders still need a body — roughly a third of the shift, which is what keeps it out of the 0-6 band.",
    "embodiment": "A 10 reflects a controlled indoor retail or hospital pharmacy floor — lifting cases of IV fluid or bottled saline, restocking OTC aisles, wiping down counting trays and the Baker cell hopper — physical work, but on a fixed floor plan with no weather, no patient handling, and no travel between sites, so it sits below field roles.",
    "liability_shield": "A 3 rather than 0 acknowledges the employer-level HIPAA training and, in some states, a registration card you mail in — but no exam, no CE, no state board discipline, and aides are barred from the tasks that carry actual legal exposure like entering prescriptions or counting controlled substances.",
    "trust_premium": "5 covers the regulars who know the person at the pickup window by name at an independent or long-term care pharmacy, but the counseling relationship legally belongs to the pharmacist, and the bag hand-off transfers to any coworker or a locker without the customer changing pharmacies.",
    "judgment_accountability": "A 2 is right because every consequential decision — DUR flags, substitutions, refusing an early fill — routes to the pharmacist by statute; the aide's discretion runs to who gets called back first and where a shipment goes on the shelf."
  },
  "rationale": "Pharmacy aides do the clerical and stocking layer around the pharmacist: ringing up sales, answering phones, filing insurance paperwork, restocking shelves, cleaning counting equipment. The paperwork and phone-triage half is already handled by IVR systems, e-prescribing, and automated insurance adjudication, and central-fill plus mail-order pharmacy is shrinking the retail counter itself. What holds is the physical presence — someone still has to receive deliveries, put stock away, and hand a bag to a customer — but that's a thin, low-wage moat with no licensure behind it (aides, unlike technicians, generally need no state certification).",
  "outlook": "BLS already projects decline for this title; expect the aide role to keep collapsing into certified technician jobs on one side and self-checkout plus mail-order fulfillment on the other.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "If DEA/state board handling rules for controlled substances and refrigerated/hazardous drugs (USP 800 hazardous-drug handling requirements, already adopted by many state boards) push more of the receiving, segregation, and disposal work onto in-person staff with documented training, the physical layer thickens rather than thins — and robotic dispensing units (ScriptPro, Omnicell) still need human loading, jam-clearing, and cleaning",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "If states follow the pattern of expanding technician registration downward to cover any unlicensed person handling drug product — several boards (e.g. Texas, Ohio) already require registration for anyone in the prescription area — aides become registered personnel with named accountability on chain-of-custody logs. This raises the floor from 'anyone off the street' to a credentialed role, but registration is not licensure with personal liability, so the ceiling is low",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "If central-fill and automation absorb the counting and clerical tier, the remaining in-store role concentrates into cash-handling exceptions, controlled-substance receiving, cold-chain verification, and walk-up problem escalation — genuinely a two-tier job, and the residue is the harder tier. Watch for aide job postings that drop 'data entry' and add 'inventory reconciliation' and 'immunization clinic support'",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "If retail chains keep facing the pharmacist-walkout and staffing-shortage backlash (CVS/Walgreens 2023 walkouts, ensuing state minimum-staffing bills in California SB 1442 and elsewhere), minimum-human-presence rules per open pharmacy could mandate support staff on site — a regulatory rather than consumer-driven premium",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Every lever here is small and none touches the wage. Aides sit below technicians in a hierarchy where any new credential requirement tends to convert the job into a technician job rather than protect the aide role; the realistic best case is absorption into 31-9097, not survival of 31-9095. There is no plausible route to a genuine consumer trust premium — no buyer specifically pays for a human to hand them a bag — and judgment_accountability has no route at all, since the role is structurally defined as not making calls."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 35960,
        "wage": 26120
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 36970,
        "wage": 26450
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 37280,
        "wage": 27850
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 38900,
        "wage": 29280
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 43560,
        "wage": 29930
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 43230,
        "wage": 33270
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 43830,
        "wage": 36200
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 41100,
        "wage": 37000
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 39530,
        "wage": 37680
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 9.9,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "locker-room-coatroom-and-dressing-room-attendants",
      "title": "Locker Room, Coatroom, and Dressing Room Attendants",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 40,
      "median_wage": 36300,
      "overlap": 71,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Negotiation"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}