What financial challenges exist to maintaining rural pharmacy services?
Rural pharmacies typically pay more to drug manufacturers per prescription and sell a relatively low volume of medications, so the profit that results can be very low. There is increasing competition from mail-order and Internet suppliers, who are able to sell at large volume and negotiate lower prices from drug manufacturers, and may pass part of these savings on to customers. Some third-party payers (organizations that pay for health care for a beneficiary) have low payment rates for prescription drugs, so that pharmacies may actually lose money supplying the medications paid for by these programs. Independent pharmacies tend to be more dependent on revenue from prescription medication sales, making them more vulnerable to increased competition and to decreases in reimbursement. The financial pressures on rural pharmacies can lead to closure, which may leave a community many miles from the next pharmacy. For more information about the challenges facing rural pharmacies, please see Ac
