Community Pharmacy’s Future Hangs on Advocacy, Support From All Healthcare Professionals
A conversation with Jennifer Bacci, PharmD, MPH, endowed associate professor of Innovative Pharmacy Practice at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy.
In the United States, it is projected that between 20% to 30% of all community pharmacies will close within the next year.1 Declining reimbursement for prescription medications, opaque and anticompetitive pricing practices of pharmacy benefit managers, and limited reimbursement for clinical services have left many community pharmacies across the country struggling.
According to the authors of a commentary published in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, embracing the role community pharmacy teams play in patient care and advocating for payment transparency and transformation will be critical for community pharmacy’s survival into the future. In order for this to occur, professionals within all of pharmacy, as well as across the healthcare landscape, will need to help.1
Jennifer Bacci, PharmD, MPH, endowed associate professor of Innovative Pharmacy Practice at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy and an author on the commentary, sat with Drug Topics to discuss what can be done to shift public perception of community pharmacists, how to address misconceptions about community pharmacy practice among other healthcare professionals, and how pharmacists can effectively advocate for fair reimbursement and payment transparency.
“I think [pharmacy closures] will take a toll on the health care system overall and other providers,” Bacci said. “I think about how often a phone rings in one community pharmacy in a day. All the questions that come in via phone or in person because it’s where someone can get a hold of a trained healthcare professional the most quickly. What’s going to happen if those individuals can’t get those questions answered? Where else will they be able to turn to get those questions answered? What will be the consequences to their health and medication use? I think that will have a strain on the healthcare system and healthcare providers across the system.”
