AKRON, Ohio — Last week, CVS closed its doors along Copley Road in Akron. Across the street, a Walgreens closed last summer.
For residents like Freddie McCall, these closures now mean the nearest pharmacy is now about 2.5 miles away.
"This is going to be hard for the west side and in this area," McCall said. "I hate to see both places close down."
As a result, this Akron neighborhood is just the latest to become what experts call a "pharmacy desert:" which are urban areas where residents must travel at least one mile to pick up prescriptions. In rural areas, a pharmacy desert is defined when there's no option within 10 miles.
The loss of pharmacies: a growing problem
In 2024, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy reported 191 pharmacies closed across the state. Over the last 12 years, the state has seen a net decrease in large chain pharmacies of 330.
Last year, News 5 reported on the rise in pharmacy deserts and how a study from Ohio State University suggested that without a pharmacy, the overall health of a community could suffer, with many no longer taking their prescribed medications for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension.
"As [pharmacies] evaporate from certain neighborhoods, I think some critical services are lost," Dr. Timothy Pawlik, who chairs the Department of Surgery at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, said last year. "There’s been a real consolidation of the market."
It's a problem not partisan to red or blue, big cities or small towns.
Belford Bowman travels nearly 10 miles to pick up the medications he needs from his home in Wayne County to this Discount Drug Mart in Lodi.
A long drive that’s still worth it, for now.
"We live on a fixed income and we can’t afford to travel too far with the price of gas and everything," Bowman said.
Bowman has been visiting this store for years, not that he has a choice anymore. The CVS down the street left Lodi last December.
"I’ve seen a lot of them close," Bowman said.
"If not for the pharmacy here in Lodi, this would be a desert," Steve Ferris, government and public affairs director at Discount Drug Mart, said. Ferris helps oversee 79 pharmacy locations across the state, predominantly in Northeast Ohio.
"There are more and more pharmacy deserts popping up across Ohio, and that’s a problem," he added.
A new dashboard from Ohio’s Board of Pharmacy highlights the scarcity of pharmacies across the state and growing areas without a pharmacy of their own. Check it out by clicking here.
The data shows Rite Aid's dramatic reduction from 208 locations to just four in less than two years. CVS and Walgreens have also closed dozens of stores across the state.
"We've heard over the past couple of years that we've seen pharmacy closures, but we haven't really quantified it," Cameron McNamee with the Ohio Board of Pharmacy said. "Being able to see it in a dashboard and have a tool available, not only for us but for policymakers to look at, we thought would be beneficial for the state of the whole."
Experts attribute these closures to several factors, including the rise in online prescription orders and pressure from the pharmaceutical middlemen (pharmacy benefit managers, also known as PBMs) that squeeze profits for brick-and-mortar locations.
Remaining pharmacies feel the pressure
As pharmacies close, those that remain face increased demand. The same Discount Drug Mart in Lodi, where Bowman regularly visits, has seen a 25% increase in prescriptions since competitors left town, and that's on the low end of what the chain is experiencing.
"We've had to increase staff and hours at the pharmacy to accommodate that volume from the closures," Ferris said. "We've seen pharmacy volumes go up from 30% to 115% in some markets."
So how do we fix this? Ohio signs into law plan for telepharmacies.
For those who don’t want to get their drugs online, there’s a new way to bring back that face-to-face conversation, kind of.
It’s called telepharmacy.
To sum it up, telepharmacy still involves going to a physical store. But when you get there, you’ll speak with a pharmacy technician or pharmacy intern in person. However, the conversation with the pharmacist would occur over videoconferencing, similar to how you would with telehealth.
"While there's no pharmacist physically present, the pharmacist is actually doing everything remotely," McNamee said. "They're supervising everything remotely. It's actually pretty commonplace out in some of the western states like Montana where you may not have enough folks to help sustain a regular retail pharmacy, but obviously pharmacy services are still needed."
The law specifically allows telepharmacies in rural areas without a place to pick up prescriptions within 10 miles.
"Really trying to drive those mini pharmacies to those desert areas to try and fill in the gaps where we're seeing those deserts occur," McNamee added.
McNamee told News 5 that regulations for telepharmacies still need to be established, and it is unlikely that one could open anytime before the end of the year.
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard, on Facebook Clay LePard News 5 or email him at Clay.LePard@WEWS.com.
