VOICE FOR EVERYONE | Share your voice with KSHB 41’s Alyssa Jackson
Last month, lines were wrapped around CVS and signs were in the windows of the pharmacy saying they were closed.
This forced people to get their prescriptions elsewhere with no notice.
When KSHB 41 called Spalitto's Pharmacy Monday afternoon, they described their customer load since the CVS walkouts as "slammed."
They have been around for nearly 100 years, and on any given day, they can probably tell you the name of the person coming through the door and what they need.
"Everyday," said Tony Spalitto, the PharmD at Spalitto's Pharmacy. "Everyday we're getting transfers."
Tony Spalitto's family runs Spalitto's Pharmacy and he said a drug shortage presented its own challenges a couple of months ago.
Add to that, more customers they aren't used to seeing.
"We get the phone calls — 'My pharmacy is closed with my script and I can't get the pharmacy.' So you have to call and leave the message for the doctor's office. It's gonna take a day or two to get it here. Then, the pharmacy is already billing their insurance, so we can't bill their insurance company, so the patient has to pay cash for their prescription," Spalitto said.
It's a snowball effect that Ken's Sunflower Pharmacy is noticing on the other side of town in Overland Park, Kansas.
"We're just the little guy, so we'll take it on," said Megan Kinser, a pharmacy technician for Ken's Sunflower Pharmacy. "We will take all we can get."
The pharmacy doesn't have it any easier. They have to wait just like their new customers.
"I cannot imagine if a customer is allowed to speak to a pharmacist [at CVS]," Kinser said. "I don't know from my experience if they have the time. Sometimes we wait an hour."
Both pharmacies agree there's a responsibility they have to the community even under pressure.
"With pharmacies and healthcare in general, healthcare can't stop," Spalitto said. "It can't be put on pause and it can't close without any notice."
Spalitto's Pharmacy told KSHB 41 to meet the need they are seeing, they plan to move toward more automated updates.
KSHB 41 reached out to CVS Pharmacy for an update on whether an agreement has been met. Below is the response.
We’re serving patients across our footprint, meeting their prescription, vaccination, and other pharmacy care needs. There’s been no unusual activity regarding unplanned pharmacy closures or pharmacist walkouts.
We’re committed to providing access to consistent, safe, high-quality health care to the patients and communities we serve and are working with our pharmacists to directly address any concerns they may have. We’re focused on developing a sustainable, scalable action plan to support both our pharmacists and our customers, that can be put in place in markets where support may be needed so we can continue delivering the high-quality care our patients depend on.
Our leaders are actively engaged with our pharmacists to directly address concerns they’ve raised, and we’re providing ongoing updates on the progress made directly to our pharmacy teams. We’re engaging in a continuous two-way dialogue to share how we’re meeting the commitments we’ve made to our teams and to continue to hear their direct feedback.
