Yesterday, I had a long conversation with a former independent pharmacy who had recently sold his business to CVS. Later in the day, I came across an article titled “Corners are cut to dispense prescriptions,” CVS employee tells Ohio Board of Pharmacy written by Marty Schladen. In reading the article, I was stunned by the shortcomings reported in the CVS stores.
The pharmacist I spoke to however told me that CVS didn’t actually buy his stores, they bought his “files” and closed the stores. According to the article, there appears to be an agenda by CVS and probably others like Walgreens to “buy and close,” moving the Rx business to one of their existing locations. It struct me that if any independent pharmacy was found to be “cutting corners” with as many shortcomings as described by the article in CVS locations that they would be shut down in short order.
In my opinion, this article should be on the counter of every independent pharmacy for their customers to see. In addition, it should be sent to employer groups as well. In my opinion, this is further evidence that groups should systematically be showing employer groups what is going on as well.
We remain strong advocates of bypassing middlemen like the Aetna/CVS/Caremark structure and position themselves to work directly with their local providers like their local independent pharmacy.
– Howard Danzig, President of The ECCHIC Group
