The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated economic pressures on small, independent pharmacies, and many have had to close in the last year, according to Kaiser Health News.
Though there's no data on how many pharmacies have closed during the pandemic or the number of patients the closures affected, the number of urban and rural independent pharmacies in the U.S. dipped below 20,000 for the first time in 2020, according to the Drug Channels Institute.
Many independent pharmacies faced economic pressures before the pandemic, Kaiser Health News reported. The Rural Policy Research Institute found that 1,231 independent rural pharmacies closed permanently from 2003 to 2018, about 16 percent of independent pharmacies in the U.S.
Many pharmacies saw a decline in prescriptions in 2020 as people avoided visiting physicians, Harry Lattanzio, president of PRS Pharmacy Services, a consulting firm in Pennsylvania, told Kaiser Health News. Fewer customers visiting pharmacies also meant fewer sales of over-the-counter medicines and other items sold by the stores.
At the same time, pharmacies had to purchase personal protective equipment to keep their employees and customers safe, and many had to invest in new technology, such as systems to answer phone calls from thousands of people per day asking about vaccines, according to Kaiser Health News.
The revenue pharmacies get from COVID-19 testing and vaccinations may help some independent pharmacies stay open, but the testing and vaccinations also come with costs and logistical challenges.
"I'm afraid to see the outcome. The delay in payments, the increased cost to keep operating in the early days of this, combined with the fact that reimbursement is so poor already — COVID may be the final nail in the coffin for some of us," Joe Moose, co-owner of Moose Pharmacy in North Carolina, told Kaiser Health News.
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