More Pharmacy Chains Closing In MA: What’s Behind It?

MASSACHUSETTS — Drugstore chains Walgreens and Rite Aid announced a slew of pharmacy closings this week, creating more uncertainty among Massachusetts residents about where they’ll get their prescriptions filled as pharmacy deserts become more common. CVS is also shuttering stores.

Chain pharmacy executives have cited a variety of reasons for closing stores in Massachusetts and other states, including reduced spending by inflation-weary customers, low reimbursement rates for pharmacy care and low dispensing fees for Medicaid enrollees.

See related: 'Significant' Number Of Walgreens Closures Pending: What To Know In MA

Also, they have said, current business models are outdated in an environment of increased competition from stores that sell much of the same merchandise, and pharmacies are still adjusting to a spike in demand for services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Massachusetts has lost several pharmacies in a wave of closings over the past few years.

Here are the closings big pharmacy chains have announced:

• Walgreens plans to close a “significant share” of its 8,600 U.S. stores nationwide to turn around its struggling pharmacy model. In an earnings call with investors Thursday, Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Timothy Wentworth said as many as 25 percent of the stores — about 2,150 of them — could close. That’s on top of about 2,000 stores the Deerfield, Illinois-based chain has closed over the past 10 years, 484 of them since February.
• Rite Aid, struggling under billions of dollars in debt and more than a thousand federal, state and local lawsuits accusing the chain of illegally filling painkiller prescriptions, said in court filings that it will close another 27 stores in two states — or virtually all of its Michigan and Ohio pharmacies. That’s on top of the nearly 500 stores the chain has already closed.
• CVS has shuttered about 600 stores since 2022 and plans to close 300 more this year. The closings “are based on our evaluation of changes in population, consumer buying patterns and future health needs to ensure we have the right pharmacy format in the right locations for patients,” CVS spokesperson Amy Thibault said in an email to CNN early this year.

What Does That Mean For Massachusetts?

An Associated Press analysis in early June shows 1,088 retail pharmacies, or about .16 per 1,000 people in Massachusetts.

Walgreens has closed several locations in the state recently, including four in Boston since 2022. Walgreens also closed North Adams and Westfield locations in February.

Rite Aid also announced closures of three stores in Massachusetts this year in Fall River, New Bedford, and Revere.

Whether independent or a chain, pharmacies can be important assets in their communities. They are health centers where the pharmacists and staff know everyone’s names and the drugs they’re taking, and often can spot signs of a serious illness. These local businesses are often stocked with supplies such as catheters, colostomy supplies and diabetes test strips that people need to stay in their homes as they navigate serious illnesses.

The AP analysis focused on rural communities, finding the gaps are greatest in those states. An earlier study by University of Southern California researchers found that Black and Latino neighborhoods in 30 large U.S. cities had fewer pharmacies than white and diverse neighborhoods from 2007 to 2015, before the current wave of pharmacy closings.

“If you’re located in a low-income neighborhood, and effectively in a Black and Latinx neighborhood, having any pharmacy is less common. And having a pharmacy that meets your needs is much less common,” Jenny Guadamuz, a co-author of the study, told CNN.

Can Massachusetts' Independents Close Gap?

Massachusetts' 146 independent pharmacies face their own set of challenges and are likely unable to fill pharmacy voids, according to the National Community Pharmacists Association, a trade group that represents more than 19,400 independent pharmacists.

The group said in a statement earlier this year that new Medicare and Medicaid rules resulting in lower prescription reimbursements, in particular, put a third of independent drugstores at risk of closure and that “millions of patients could be stranded without a pharmacy.”

In 2022, Massachusetts' independent pharmacists filled 9.667 million prescriptions. This included 3.383 million Part D prescriptions filled and 1.546 million Medicaid prescriptions filled.

Independent pharmacies in Massachusetts generated more than $617 million in sales and employed 1,042 people as of 2022. These pharmacies are also responsible for $407 million in additional economic activity, according to National Community Pharmacists Association data.

Patients suffer when pharmacies disappear.

“You can think of a closure as a disruption of care,” Guadamuz, who is an assistant professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, told CNN last fall. “You had a routine: You would go to a pharmacy that was geographically accessible — ideally affordable — and was probably preferred by your health insurance plan. And then that pharmacy is no longer there.”

When CVS announced suddenly last March that it planned to shutter the store in Herscher, Illinois, a village of about 1,500 located 80 miles south of Chicago, the town’s mayor met with executives and asked them to at least delay the closure. CVS execs told the mayor the front of the store wasn’t making enough money, The AP reported.

Pharmacy access is an important consideration in decisions about store closings, CVS spokesman Matt Blanchette told The AP, but the company also looks at local market dynamics, population shifts and competition from stores selling the same over-the-counter products, he said.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.