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EDITORIAL: Chain pharmacies closing raise the risk of “pharmacy deserts”

3 min read

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember when going to the drug store meant a trip to the small, independently-run pharmacy a block or two away, where your parents or grandparents could pick up prescriptions, mouthwash and other boring adult stuff, and you could peruse the comic books to see if the latest editions of “Captain America” or “The Fantastic Four” had arrived.

Those mom-and-pop stores are still out there, though they are harder to find. Many were pushed out of business when chain operations like Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid aggressively expanded across the country more than 20 years ago. But now those once mighty corporate brands are themselves facing turbulent times.

Walgreens and CVS have shuttered locations in recent years, and last week Rite Aid announced it was voluntarily entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which is typically carried out in the hope that a company can stay alive, reorganize and restructure its debt. And right now Rite Aid is drowning in a sea of red ink — the company is $4 billion in debt, on which it pays $200 million in interest every year. Accompanying the bankruptcy announcement was a list of stores Rite Aid would be closing, which includes a handful in the Pittsburgh region, though none — at least not yet — in Washington, Greene or Fayette counties.

There’s no one thing that has laid Rite Aid low, but changing consumer habits is high atop the list, with giants like Amazon and Walmart getting into the prescription game. Other factors include retail theft at some locations, understaffing, Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements that have not allowed the stores to keep up with expenses and the cost of settling opioid lawsuits.

Neil Saunders, the managing director of Global Data Retail, told The Washington Post, “The economics of running these stores have just unraveled, and they’re not as profitable.”

Rite Aid teetering, however, is more than just another saga of the business cycle, when one thing replaces another as consumers seek greater convenience and lower cost. The departure of Rite Aid from some locales could exacerbate a growing problem in the United States — pharmacy deserts.

A pharmacy desert is, put simply, a place where residents have a hard time getting to a pharmacy. It could be a struggling urban neighborhood, somewhere deep in the rural heartland or even a suburb. Some city residents might not have a vehicle to get to a pharmacy easily, and denizens of the countryside might be in for a long trek no matter what kind of a vehicle they have. It’s estimated that up to 40% of Americans live in a pharmacy desert.

The consequences are not trivial. Studies have shown that if individuals don’t have easy access to a pharmacy, they are less likely to take their medications, and will experience worse health outcomes. It’s estimated that the cost of people not taking their medicine run to more than $500 billion per year and are about 16% of all health care costs.

Some of the solutions that have been put forward include increasing Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements in areas classified as pharmacy deserts, boosting telepharmacy services, placing additional pharmacies in hospitals and community health clinics, and increasing transportation assistance.

The medicines that are available at pharmacies have allowed Americans to live longer and healthier lives. We just need to ensure that everyone has access to them.

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