{"id":260592,"date":"2026-08-06T21:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T21:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260592\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T21:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T21:08:08","slug":"phillys-neighborhood-pharmacies-might-just-save-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260592\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly\u2019s Neighborhood Pharmacies Might Just Save Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNews<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Independent drugstores are filling the gaps left by struggling chains, even as financial pressures put their own futures in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

Can local pharmacies save us? \/ Photograph by Hyoung Chang via Getty Images<\/p>\n

When Brenda Dixon-Gottschild and her husband moved last year from a Chestnut Hill house to a condo in The Philadelphian near the Art Museum, she fell in love with the high-rise\u2019s amenities. The on-site grocery store and restaurant are \u201cdelightful,\u201d she says, but the building\u2019s Parkway Pharmacy<\/a> has made a particular difference.<\/p>\n

In Chestnut Hill, she picked up prescriptions at a \u201cchaotic\u201d CVS. At the independently owned Parkway, she greets the staff by their names, and they know her. \u201cThey\u2019re looking at their customers as people, and it\u2019s just an incredible, new experience for us; I\u2019m so grateful,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a different vibe, and it is worth a million.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what she means: You won\u2019t find harried staff and long lines at Parkway Pharmacy. No disembodied voice is persistently announcing \u201cone pharmacy call, two pharmacy calls, three pharmacy calls,\u201d reminding everyone in earshot that HELLO, MANY PEOPLE ARE ON HOLD. There is, however, a small stock of personal care and household items neatly lining a wall of wood shelves. Refreshingly, aspirin, shampoo, and sundries are not locked behind plexiglass \u2014 a luxury by city standards.<\/p>\n

The pharmacists, too, are a draw: \u201cThey are so patient. When my husband\u2019s medications have to be changed, they are right on top of it,\u201d Dixon-Gottschild says.<\/p>\n

She finds the lack of staff turnover reassuring. And \u201cit\u2019s the same [pharmacist] who knows you and your history with the medications you\u2019re taking.\u201d Each month, the pharmacy prepares a blister pack with an easy, punch-through backing to organize her husband\u2019s daily dose of medication.<\/p>\n

\u201cI joke all the time that CVS is our best advertiser,\u201d says Parkway\u2019s owner, Dennis Czerw. \u201cPeople walk in and say, \u2018I\u2019m tired of the CVS. How do I transfer my prescriptions?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Dixon-Gottschild\u2019s revelation isn\u2019t an anomaly: Independent pharmacies across the region have many longtime fans, and in recent years, they\u2019ve seen an influx of newcomers. Many found their way to these neighborhood anchors during the mad scramble to get a \u00adCOVID-19 vaccine. Some were forced to seek out an alternative amid closures of Rite-Aid, CVS, and Walgreens stores. (Dozens have shuttered in the region in the past few years, while more than 1,000 pharmacies of all types have gone out of business across Pennsylvania since 2020. That\u2019s about one-quarter of the state\u2019s pharmacies just gone.)<\/p>\n

But even as customers rediscover the comfort of neighborhood pharmacies, many independent owners fear their places may not survive. Running any kind of small business is tough, but community pharmacies operate inside a health care system where they don\u2019t control what medications cost, what insurance will reimburse them, or whether filling a prescription will actually lose them money.<\/p>\n

Rob Frankil, executive director of the Philadelphia Association of Retail Druggists, estimates that 80 percent of his 200 members are \u201cstruggling to pay the bills, themselves, and their staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is worrying. Part of life in any city is, of course, losing the occasional beloved neighborhood business \u2014 the bakery that knew your order, the hardware place that somehow had exactly the weird screw you needed, the corner store owner who kept tabs on the block. But indie pharmacies are different, a human voice in a health care system that often feels anything but human. They\u2019re part clinic, part corner store. And, oh yeah, they also help keep us alive.<\/p>\n

And so you\u2019d think that, given their attributes and the withdrawal of chain pharmacies from the city, these \u00adplaces would be killing it these days, but no. Like everything else in the American medical system, they\u2019re on shaky ground \u2014 leaving the question looming: What happens if we lose them? If they can\u2019t keep going, can we?<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, most pharmacies were independently owned. But then Rite-Aid came to town in the 1970s, followed by CVS and Walgreens in the 1990s, and for a while all coexisted fairly comfortably. As PARD\u2019s Frankil says, \u201cThere\u2019s plenty of sick people out there that need medicine,\u201d and some customers actually prefer bigger, shinier chains over small indie shops. But as chains undergo drastic restructuring and cost cutting nationwide, the impact has been felt at the customer level, where filling and picking up a prescription feels more transactional and less personal \u2014 like a lot of health care in general. CVS customers especially, like Sean Preston of Fairmount, noticed and started seeking alternative pharmacies.<\/p>\n

Preston, who says his prescriptions are expensive for him, tried Cost Plus Drugs mail order for a while, and they were cheaper. \u201cBut I also had anxiety about getting my prescriptions delivered to my door because packages get stolen all the time,\u201d he says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t afford to have someone take the pills that I need when I need them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He ended up at S\u014dlace Pharmacy<\/a> in Francisville, after spotting the business on a neighborhood stroll. He recalls thinking at the time, \u201cWow, this is so close to me, way closer than the CVS that I dread going to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a pleasant surprise,\u201d he says. \u201cI just had a good experience, and there were good vibes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Preston and his fianc\u00e9e get all their prescriptions filled at S\u014dlace. There, pharmacist owner Marcus Patterson regularly handles transfers of patients\u2019 medicines from the chains. In fact, says Patterson, he calls CVS so often with change requests, \u201cI know the phone number off the top of my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

And over on Allegheny Avenue, customers go out of their way to pick up prescriptions from pharmacist Brad Tabaac at the Port Richmond Pharmacy. Many know him from his two decades running Friendly Pharmacy in Ken\u00adsington. When finances forced him to close in 2024, Tabaac moved over to Port Richmond Pharmacy \u2014 and his customers followed him. \u201cThey pass five different drugstores on their way,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re loyal.\u201d Their allegiance was earned: Tabaac makes an effort to be on a first-name basis with prescribing doctors and to obtain their cell numbers, so he can text them directly about prescription problems.<\/p>\n

This is how health care should be, offers Alexis Lieberman, a pediatrician who practices in city and suburban of\u00adfices and is an unabashed fan of independent pharmacists, whom she often calls with prescribing questions. (Patients of hers will tell you she often happily suggests local pharmacies to them during visits.)<\/p>\n

\u201cInsurance is difficult, especially when it comes to inhalers,\u201d she says. \u201cYou never know which inhaler is covered. The best way to find out, frankly, is if you have a very patient pharmacist who will put each one through. I have total respect for the pharmacists at CVS, but the CVS company does not give them the time to do that kind of thing.\u201d (Nearly everyone interviewed for this story emphasized their respect for the individuals who staff chain drugstores.)<\/p>\n

She rattles off the names of the pharmacies she relies on for such help: Parkway, S\u014dlace, Fairmount, Ellis, Brewerytown RX, Morrison\u2019s in Roxborough, Pelham in Mount Airy, East Norriton Pharmacy, Small Town Pharmacy in Norristown, and Gladwyne Pharmacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey rehumanize medicine,\u201d she says. Fairmount Pharmacy once rushed medicine a few blocks to Lieberman\u2019s office for a patient having an asthma attack. \u201cAnd Fishtown Pharmacy, can I tell you about him? I had a patient with a really bad ear infection,\u201d she says. \u201cI called in the prescription, and he said, \u2018I\u2019m closing in three minutes.\u2019 I said, \u2018I think they\u2019re 10 minutes away.\u2019 And he said, \u2018I\u2019ll wait for them.\u2019 And he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The personal touch just makes good business sense to Fairmount Pharmacy owner Jerry Volgraf. If an antibiotic prescription arrives after closing on a Saturday, he\u2019ll call the customer and tell them to have their provider send it to a pharmacy that\u2019s still open, rather than wait for Fairmount to get to it. \u201cBy not filling that prescription, I garner more respect,\u201d he says. \u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019m a pharmacist. I\u2019m here to serve the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across Philadelphia\u2019s independent pharmacies, the human touches show up every day, in ways big and small. Pharmacists calm patients when medications are confusing or intimidating. They explain tricky dosing schedules, walk people through self-injections, flag side effects, and follow up afterward. They spend hours untangling insurance problems, calling doctors, and answering questions a rushed health care system often leaves behind. And because they know their customers so well, the care becomes personal: remembering who is grieving, who is anxious, who needs extra help managing medications \u2014 even sending sympathy cards when someone loses a loved one.<\/p>\n

Research shows that those relationships matter, especially when it comes to older, low-income patients who take multiple medications. A recent study found that these patients actually kept up better with their prescriptions<\/a> when they were using an independent pharmacy to obtain them. Compliance is crucial: When people stop taking medications properly, health worsens and hospitalizations rise.<\/p>\n

These relationships are the bedrock of the independent pharmacist\u2019s trade. But they\u2019re becoming harder for pharmacy owners to sustain financially \u2014 even though the customer base is growing.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The crux of the crisis is that pharmacies don\u2019t control the price of medications or what they get reimbursed to dispense them. If they want to be able to accept insurance \u2014 whether that\u2019s government-run Medicare and Medicaid or commercial plans people get through employers or buy for themselves \u2014 they need to accept the terms of pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. The PBMs are middlemen that negotiate pricing with drug manufacturers on behalf of health insurers and set each pharmacy\u2019s reimbursement rate.<\/p>\n

Independent pharmacy owners say PBMs have steadily shrunk their margins, and point out that for many medications, they get reimbursed less than what it costs them to actually fill the prescription. That\u2019s a big reason why Czerw at Parkway Pharmacy, which in 2025 averaged about 200 new customers a month, says he hasn\u2019t seen the growth equate to higher profits.<\/p>\n

Three PBMs control nearly 80 percent of the market: CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and Optum Rx. Also frustrating, says Czerw, is the fact that each is \u201cvertically integrated.\u201d For example, CVS owns health insurer Aetna, and the PBM called CVS Caremark, and the CVS retail pharmacies. So in other words, CVS Caremark handles contracts for both CVS drugstores and Parkway Pharmacy. You can see the issue here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if McDonald\u2019s could set the prices for Burger King and say every burger at Burger King is 40 bucks?\u201d Czerw says.<\/p>\n

Tabaac, the former owner of now-closed Friendly Pharmacy, offers an even more pointed example. Even though he\u2019s now an employee at Port Richmond Pharmacy, not an owner, he can\u2019t help but think like the entrepreneur he once was. He\u2019s 70 years old, is on Medicare, and gets his one prescription filled \u2026 down the street at CVS. \u201cI get it there because Port Richmond Pharmacy would lose $100 if I filled it where I work,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

PBMs have been sued for \u201csteering\u201d patients to their pharmacies. They also face lawsuits that allege they reimbursed pharmacies lower prices for drugs, then turned around and charged the insurance plans higher prices and kept the difference. The city of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania are among hundreds of plaintiffs that recently sued PBMs, alleging a scheme to inflate insulin prices<\/a> for profit.<\/p>\n

Lately, PBMs say they\u2019re changing, becoming more transparent. They also say they just want to get the best \u00adprices for consumers and that the drugmakers are at fault for the high cost of medicine. The drugmakers say it\u2019s the PBMs that drive up the price. (Google \u201cPBMs drugmakers blame<\/a>\u201d if you\u2019re in the mood for an eyeball-numbing deep dive.) The reality is messier: Drugmakers largely set list prices, while PBMs, insurers, rebate systems, formularies, opaque contracts, and who knows what else influence what medicines ultimately cost, what patients pay, and which drugs they can actually use. Everyone in the supply chain touches the price tag.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to the mess is that, when an independent pharmacy closes in Philadelphia, the impact isn\u2019t evenly distributed across neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

A recent national study found that more pharmacies are closing than opening<\/a> in the United States, and that independents as well as chain drugstores in Black and Latino communities are having the toughest time<\/a>. Also, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to pharmacies are particularly low, meaning pharmacies that serve a high percentage of elderly and low-income patients are most in danger of going out of business.<\/p>\n

But does anyone in the endless blame game stop to consider what all of this is doing to the lives of the only people who actually matter here \u2014 the patients? And, by extension, to pharmacists, the frontline health warriors patients need to keep them healthy?<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the next five years, if laws aren\u2019t passed to protect pharmacies from their margins being eroded, you\u2019re going to have a hard time finding a pharmacy,\u201d says PARD\u2019s Frankil.<\/p>\n

When State Senator Christine Tartaglione, who represents the Lower Northeast, looks around her district, she says, \u201cI have CVSs leaving. Rite-Aid left. The poor independent pharmacies are the last man standing. I have 141,000 Medicaid patients in my district, the largest number in the state, and they\u2019re not going to have a pharmacy to go to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philadelphia City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson says her office regularly fields phone calls from constituents affected by both independent and chain-store pharmacy closures.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard them say it\u2019s just difficult to get to the next closest pharmacy, that it\u2019s causing them to have delays in access to their medication,\u201d says Gil\u00admore Richardson, who remembers walking just a few blocks when she was a young girl to pick up her grandmother\u2019s blood pressure medication at a neighborhood pharmacy on the corner of 27th and Girard. \u201cI can tell you with certainty that that pharmacy is gone. So it also impacts our local commercial corridors.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the fall, she says, City Council plans to hold a hearing about the issue, to document \u201cthe impact that the closures [are] having on our constituents, particularly our seniors, our non-\u00adEnglish-speaking residents, disabled folks, folks who are underserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Awareness about so-called \u201cpharmacy deserts\u201d is increasing among \u00adelected officials outside of Philly too, who frame the issue as a health-access problem. According to a late 2025 estimate from health care company GoodRx, about 250,000 people in the Philadelphia area live in a pharmacy desert. Congress and the legislature in Harrisburg have passed a patchwork of laws, and still more are pending, to rein in PBMs and help pharmacies. In May, Congress relaunched a bipartisan effort<\/a> to prohibit companies from owning both a PBM and retail pharmacies. In Pennsylvania, Tartaglione is hopeful about Senate Bill 1186<\/a>, which she has co-sponsored. It\u2019s intended to increase how much pharmacies receive when they fill Medicaid prescriptions and is modeled on an Ohio approach that\u2019s already showing positive results for that state\u2019s independents.<\/p>\n

Independent pharmacists welcome legislative relief, but they\u2019re not waiting around for it. They\u2019re hustling in true Philly fashion to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

Czerw has doubled down on vaccines: Flu and COVID shots are processed as medical claims and therefore avoid the PBM control over prescription drugs. His pharmacy administered 8,000 vaccines last year through walk-ins \u2014 his place has a special little room for them, comfortable and well-appointed like the rest of his shop \u2014 and pop-up clinics at dozens of city apartment buildings. \u201cWe bend over backwards to do as many vaccines as we possibly can. That makes or breaks our year,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Others rent out medical equipment like crutches and hospital beds, or sell household items, snacks, flowers, candles, and such. But, Tartaglione says, \u201cnot all pharmacies can rely on extra income from sources like a gift shop. In areas like mine where there\u2019s not a lot of disposable income, customers are just going to go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and not do shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, community pharmacies are, for now, hanging in there, serving one thankful patient at a time. Customers invite Patterson over for dinner. Volgraf received baby gifts when his daughter and son were born. Czerw gets cookies and cakes. Each gesture is a reminder of the human connection that will be lost should yet another independent pharmacy go under.<\/p>\n

At the moment, says Czerw, \u201cI\u2019m doing okay. But we don\u2019t know where pharmacy is going in the next handful of years. Is Amazon going to have drones everywhere dropping prescriptions on people\u2019s doorsteps?\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, uncertainty didn\u2019t stop him from buying a second pharmacy, an independent in Roxborough, a little over a year ago. Customers there are still thanking him for \u201csaving this pharmacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can have a big effect,\u201d says Czerw. \u201cI cross my fingers every day that this business can survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Published as \u201cCan Local Pharmacies Save Us?\u201d in the July 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News Independent drugstores are filling the gaps left by struggling chains, even as financial pressures put their own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-260592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}