Our most frequent interactions with America’s healthcare system aren’t typically at a doctor’s office, hospital, or urgent care center. Rather, we find ourselves—once a month or more—at a counter tucked inside our local pharmacy. These frontline pharmacists and pharmacy techs don’t just fill our prescriptions. They recommend over-the-counter treatments, give us our annual vaccines, talk to us about drug interactions, and much more. Most importantly, they’re always there—available to chat often late into the night without a pre-scheduled appointment or hours-long wait.
Sadly, the business of pharmacy is tough and just getting tougher. There’s a laundry list of reasons: rising rents; staffing costs; increased adoption of online options; pharmacists leaving the industry due to burn out and underpayment; changing prescription reimbursement models; and more.
Despite these challenges, the vast majority of Americans want in-person access to a pharmacist. More than half of people say they’d seek non-emergency healthcare at pharmacies before going to the doctor or a hospital. Pharmacists are on the frontline of community healthcare. With this in mind, here are three reasons we must prioritize the vitality of our nation’s retail pharmacies:
#1: Pharmacies bridge gaps in our fragmented healthcare system
In a perfect world, healthcare data would be streamlined and every healthcare professional a patient sees would communicate with one another. But we all know that our current system is far from perfect. And while many people rely on their primary care physician to be the keeper of their full medical history, nearly a third of Americans don’t have one.
The biggest issue this lack of interconnectedness can cause is the potential to overlook interactions between different medications. For example, a patient may neglect to tell a new doctor what other drugs they’re taking, and the pharmacist can be an added layer of protection to make sure a new medication won’t cause adverse reactions with something else they’re taking. There are numerous studies proving how this proactive interaction can reduce medication errors and potentially lethal interactions.
Pharmacists also provide instructions for medication use, address side effects, answer questions, and take the time to provide in-depth guidance that physicians can be too time-strapped to give during an appointment, call, or email. This support can improve medication adherence, especially for people managing chronic conditions like hypertension or diabetes.
#2: Pharmacies provide a convenient, consistent in-person option for medical advice and non-emergency health concerns
Even with digital solutions like telehealth expanding rapidly, many of us value face-to-face healthcare conversations with our local pharmacists. In fact, people visit pharmacies 12 times more often than they visit the doctor.
When it comes to community health, we rely on our pharmacies for more than just filling prescriptions. These days, pharmacies give vaccinations and offer point-of-care testing and health screenings. Many retail pharmacies have clinics with the ability to treat common ailments, like the flu or pink eye, or help patients manage chronic conditions. Recently the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced just how instrumental pharmacies are, as they quickly administered vaccines on a large scale.
When the world seems busier than ever, pharmacies are a reliable option for fast-but-trustworthy medical care.
#3: Pharmacies pave the way for healthcare access for our most vulnerable populations
In my last piece I explained how healthcare deserts are negatively impacting the overall health of communities across the country. This is something we need to solve for. In the meantime, pharmacies can help fill the gap. More than 90% of Americans live within five miles of a pharmacy and researchers have found that there are far more pharmacies in low-income communities than there are physician practices.
Retail pharmacies also offer more over-the-counter options than ever before. Recently Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill, hit shelves. And last year Narcan became the first opioid overdose reversal medication to be sold without a prescription. Two of the companies that manufacture continuous glucose monitors for people with diabetes recently announced new over-the-counter products. These medications and treatments help cut through the healthcare system’s red tape and improve access for people in rural or underserved areas.
Don’t undervalue our retail pharmacies
Consumers continue to frequent these stores and build personal relationships with the helpful, empathetic professionals behind the counter. So it’s up to the healthcare, business and regulatory communities to fight for their livelihood.
We’re tackling this at GoodRx from a few different angles. We’ve expanded how we work with pharmacies, adapting our contracting model to align economic incentives between GoodRx and our retail pharmacy partners to drive sustainable growth. We’re also making prescription prices more transparent and helping consumers access discounts. This reduces the number of prescriptions abandoned at the pharmacy counter due to high cost, which in turn increases claim volume for retail pharmacies. Also, GoodRx Helps has awarded $100,000 in pharmacist and pharmacy tech scholarships in recent years.
I may be one of the lucky ones who has options when it comes to my family’s healthcare, but I don’t take for granted the relationship I have with my local pharmacist. For many people, this healthcare partner may be the best option they have to manage their health and wellness. We can’t lose sight of that.
Doug Hirsch is cofounder and chief mission officer at GoodRx.