Research released last month on rural independent pharmacy closures by the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis was highlighted in The Health 202, a morning health care policy newsletter published by the Washington Post.
As the newsletter states, “The impact on rural pharmacies’ profits is tangible. The RUPRI report found that 630 rural communities saw their only pharmacy close its doors from 2003 to 2018. During that same stretch, 302 rural communities lost all but one local pharmacy.”
In a follow-up interview with the newsletter staff writers, Dr. Keith Mueller, lead author of the report, discussed the “market disruptions” that rural pharmacies have more difficulty weathering than larger pharmacy systems. “They’re the kinds of issues that if you’re at the scale of a CVS, it’s not the dealbreaker, but it is for a local independent pharmacy,” Mueller said.
