Rite Aid closures in Feb 2018

[Sine Cura]

I was just curious as to what what Rite Aid employees are facing currently. I know of at least three Rite Aids in the Sacramento, CA, area are closing by February 2018, presumably with their prescription records sent to the nearest Walgreens. Are they doing these closures in waves or just doing a mass shutdown? All of these Rite Aids are in medically underserved and low-income areas

In my own work area in 2015 there were 16 chain pharmacies within a 2-mile driving distance from where I work and now it's down to 12 including one of the Rite Aids near me.

I would expect 2 of the 3 remaining Rite Aids in this area to close soon as they are within half a mile of the nearest Walgreens except for the fact that Walgreens isn't contracted with 3 out of the 4 managed care Medi-Cal plans (not including Kaiser) that Rite Aid accepts (did accept?). This area has a high % of Rx billed to Medi-Cal due to the many FQHCs (there are six FQHCs in this area whose scripts I commonly see), mental health clinics and other Medi-Cal-dominant clinics and a few solo primary care practitioners that do a high % of Medi-Cal

I suppose lack of overlap in pharmacy networks will "allow" less ghetto and/or higher volume Rite Aid locations to survive for the time being.

Edit: apparently Walgreens didn't buy any Rite Aid stores in California so these stores are closing "independent" of the Walgreens acquisition. So you can regard these closures as just another sign of the times (less viable stores will be shut down, leading to fewer pharmacy jobs etc)

---

Members don't see this ad.