Patient’s Pharmacy, located in the plaza across from Runnings, is preparing to offer local Rite Aid customers a place to go for a pharmacy following the Rite Aid closures. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

Following the announcement at the beginning of the month that Rite Aid will be closing all of its stores in New York, other smaller, local pharmacies are looking to help those in need of finding a new place to get their prescriptions.

At the beginning of May, Rite Aid announced that the chain is entering a second Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with Buffalo television stations WGRZ and WKBW reporting all of Rite Aid’s New York stores will close. There are 73 Rite Aid locations in Western New York that include stores on Fairmount Avenue in Ellicott and in Brooklyn Square in Jamestown. Rite Aid also owns stores at 1166 Central Ave, Dunkirk and 3795 E Main Road, Fredonia, along with locations in Mayville, Silver Creek, Salamanca and Gowanda.

Patient’s Pharmacy, located at 707 Fairmount Avenue, Suite 6 and 7, in the plaza across from Runnings, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, and is closed on Sunday. Owner Diane Mathews said Patient’s Pharmacy remains one of the last independent pharmacies in the area, along with another in Sherman and Dunkirk.

“We have gotten a lot of calls about how to change over from Rite Aid to us,” Mathews said. “The easiest way is to call your doctor and tell them to send your prescriptions here. We can transfer you, but we’re only allowed to fill out that transfer once, so the best way to do it is to call your doctor and tell them to start sending all of your prescriptions to Patient’s Pharmacy.”

While Rite Aid stores are moving towards closure, Mathews said those that get their prescriptions there need to find a new pharmacy and they need to do it now. Additionally, she said no one knows for sure Rite Aid’s exact closure date, saying that they have heard both June 4 and the end of the month.

“Do it now so you are not in need of your medication and it doesn’t become an emergency,” Mathews said. “Call your doctor now. Just because you send your prescriptions over does not mean we fill them. We hold them until you want them, because we don’t know when the last time you filled them up was.”

Small, local pharmacies face their own challenges, Mathews said. In the pharmacy world, there are three big corporation Pharmacy Benefit Managers, or PBMs, which are companies that manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance plans and employers. Everyone is reimbursed differently from these PBM’s, Mathews said, adding that big box pharmacies will be reimbursed for their purchases of medicine more than the small, individual pharmacies because they will buy more as they have to cover all of the pharmacies that they own, compared to places like Patient’s Pharmacy, which has only one.

Even with challenges like this that can lead to small, independent pharmacies sometimes losing money, Mathews said her pharmacy does the best they can for their customers with what they have to work with. This may include changing their hours in the future if they see an influx in business following the Rite Aid closures. Patient’s Pharmacy also offers services such as delivery and compliance packaging — the dispensing of medications in a clearly organized and labeled blister pack — , something that Mathews said is especially helpful for the elderly who may still live at home with the help of a home nurse.

Mathews reemphasized and encouraged anyone who is a Rite Aid customer to change their pharmacy now, no matter what pharmacy they pick, before it becomes a problem.

“Don’t procrastinate, change your pharmacy now,” Mathews said. “Do it now so it doesn’t become an emergent factor. We don’t want anyone to not be able to get their medicine or to run out and not have a place to go. This also gives us time as a pharmacy to get your medicine in stock if we don’t already have it, so we can have it when you need it.”

For more information on Patient’s Pharmacy call (716)720-5809, or visit them on Facebook or at ptsrx.com.