Another independent pharmacy to close in Centre County, in area hard hit by business loss
Moshannon Valley Pharmacy’s Snow Shoe location is scheduled to close Monday after nearly four decades in business, its owner wrote Thursday in an email.
The closure will further inconvenience Mountaintop residents who are adjusting to life without Hall’s Market, which announced this spring it will not rebuild after a February fire.
All Moshannon Valley Pharmacy prescriptions are expected to be transferred to CVS Pharmacy in Bellefonte.
About three people were employed at the dispensary. The pharmacy’s Philipsburg location is scheduled to remain open, owner Bill Faust wrote.
“Despite our financial challenges, it was a very difficult decision. We hung on for several years hoping the environment would change,” Faust wrote. “It has been an honor to serve Snow Shoe and the surrounding communities all these years. We are going to miss our patients.”
Continued declining reimbursements and increasing fees have made it “nearly impossible” for independent pharmacies to remain in business, Faust wrote.
Parrish Apothecary Shop, which operated in downtown Bellefonte for more than 120 years, also cited pharmacy reimbursements as a key factor in its decision to close in October.
Pharmacy benefit managers are responsible for deciding reimbursements on prescriptions and operate with little oversight, Faust wrote.
State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and the state Pharmacists Association have each pushed for oversight over PBMs, which DePasquale said “act as middlemen between manufacturers and pharmacists.”
Improving transparency about how PBMs operate could go “a long way” toward reducing the cost of prescriptions, DePasquale said in January.
“In many communities, independent pharmacies are the front door of health care,” DePasquale said in a January statement. “When small pharmacies close, it can create a real hardship on residents and make it more difficult for them to quickly access the medications and medical information they need.”
This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 11:30 AM.