Eight months pregnant, 34-year-old Alicia Mann stood in line for an hour last month at the CVS Pharmacy at 10th Street and Arlington Avenue. She normally wouldn’t stay on her feet that long, but the prescription couldn’t wait. Her husband needed it after a recent heart attack.
By the time she reached the front, a staff member delivered the bad news: The store was behind on filling hundreds of scripts, and they wouldn’t be able to hand over her husband’s blood thinners.
“I am very large and pregnant and I said, ‘I need these meds today, what are my options?’” Mann recalled. Thankfully, the CVS worker found a way to help her. Others waiting in line were not so lucky.
Gone are the days of arriving at your local pharmacy to quickly pick up medications. Instead, scenes of frustration — and sometimes desperation — are playing out in stores across Indianapolis as pharmacies close en masse and remaining locations face staffing shortages and an influx of new customers.
At least 20 pharmacies have closed in Indianapolis since 2020, including 16 CVS locations. The national chain plans to close as many as 900 stores by next year, spokesperson Amy Thibault said in an email, though additional closures are not planned in Indianapolis.
“Maintaining access to pharmacy services in underserved communities is also an important factor we consider when making store closure decisions,” Thibault wrote.
Pharmacy deserts disproportionately affect Black and Latino neighborhoods in cities, research shows.
On top of that, Walgreens confirmed four Indianapolis closings since 2020.
The rash of closings is why Mann was forced to stand in line last month. After the pharmacy closest to her home recently shut down, Mann moved her prescription orders to another CVS — even though the location is the subject of many complaints on a neighborhood Facebook group where residents described irregular hours, crying in line and unreliable service for obtaining prescriptions like insulin.
“In my opinion, CVS doesn’t pay enough and people are rightly going elsewhere,” Mann said. “It leaves a skeleton crew.”
Long hours and longer lines
The closings are affecting pharmacy workers, too.
Burnout has soared since the pandemic, as pharmacists and technicians find themselves being asked to do more with fewer resources and support. And every closing sends a wave of new customers to stores that are sometimes unprepared for the demand.
“If you don’t have the sufficient staff, it really creates a stressful environment where you’re trying to keep up,” said Darren Covington, executive vice president of The Indiana Pharmacy Association, which represents the interests of the state’s pharmacy workers.
Pharmacists under pressure are more susceptible to high turnover rates and making mistakes, Covington said, like giving a patient the wrong prescription.
While visiting pharmacy locations around the city, Mirror Indy saw workers grappling with long hours and even longer lines. One pharmacist on the northwest side agreed to discuss the challenges, but a manager quickly canceled the interview, citing corporate policy that bars speaking to journalists.
“They’re all doing their best and they’re never rude, no matter how rude people are to them,” Asha Hurtado, 52, said of staff as she waited in line at the CVS on West 56th Street late last month. “The demand is very high. You could turn this whole store into a pharmacy and it wouldn’t be enough.”
In many cities, the conditions led thousands of pharmacy workers at chains such as CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid to walk out in the fall. And then came a November announcement about a national unionization effort under the new Pharmacy Guild.
Guild leaders have been hearing from pharmacy workers in Indianapolis on the heels of store closures, a representative said, and some are interested in establishing a local union in the city.
Independent pharmacies face financial strains
As corporate pharmacies close or become overwhelmed by demand, some Indianapolis residents have found a solution in independent stores.
The George’s Pharmacy location in Irvington, for example, is experiencing a record volume of prescription orders, said Blake Gillman, the owner.
But locally owned stores face challenges, too.
Gillman said his family business, which contains seven pharmacies around the state, is struggling to stay afloat as powerful industry actors call the shots on their contracts and fees.
The influence of pharmacy benefit managers, which manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance companies, is placing financial pressure on independent stores. Many customers who want to switch their pharmacies soon learn they will face higher copays, or their insurance provider will not cover the costs at all.
And after filling a prescription for a customer, independent pharmacies are often hit with clawback fees from pharmacy benefit managers that lower their profits, said Margie Snyder, a professor of pharmacy practice at Purdue University.
“This results in the pharmacy losing money every time they fill a prescription,” she said. “So we’re seeing pharmacies, especially small pharmacies that can’t sell other things in the store, really struggling to stay open.”
When prescriptions aren’t profitable, George’s Pharmacy makes up the difference with medical equipment sales, construction projects and selling insurance.
Still, Gillman has watched other local pharmacies around him close — dying solutions in a health care landscape he finds increasingly unsustainable.
“There’s doing the right thing versus what is profitable,” he said. “It’s about how long we can weather the storm.”
Mirror Indy reporter Mary Claire Molloy covers health. Reach her at maryclaire.molloy@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @mcmolloy7.
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