NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — A local pharmacy owner is looking to help fill the void as dozens of Rite Aid stores in Western New York close their doors.
The closure of the stores has many customers concerned about where to get their prescriptions filled.
Moden-Giroux Inc. has seven family pharmacies throughout the Northtowns and our more rural communities. The company is willing to take any Rite Aid prescription and is willing to deliver.
WATCH: 'It was very easy to switch': Independent pharmacies in WNY stepping up for customers as Rite Aid stores close
North Tonawanda resident Jacqueline Mang has been a Rite Aid customer for years, but suddenly switched to Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy to get her prescriptions after the bankruptcy announcement.
She made the move about a month ago and the transition has been seamless.
"It's been good," Mang said. "Every time I've come in, things have been ready. There's been no problems even switching over. They explained the process to me and what I needed to do."
"Once I found out that Rite Aid was closing, I automatically knew I was going to come to the Wurlitzer Pharmacy, being a North Tonawanda resident," Mang said. "I always heard good things about this pharmacy, and it turned out to be true. It was very easy to switch over my prescriptions."
Several others have also made this exact switch.
Owner of the pharmacy, Steve Giroux, said the pharmacy has increased its staffing to accommodate the influx of customers.
"We want to make sure that we treat our new patients the same way as we treat all of our patients, which is to make them part of our family, essentially," he said.
Giroux told me Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy has been receiving anywhere from 50-100 patients per day from the Rite Aid just a block away. According to Giroux, the best way to make this process seamless is to have your prescriber make the switch.
"The patient can call their prescriber, and the prescriber can then send it. It's all done electronically today," Giroux said. "So if you communicate with the prescribers, they can send all the prescriptions even though you might not need them yet, at least they're on file at the new pharmacy."
If transportation is a challenge, the pharmacy can deliver medications for free.
"Independent pharmacies typically deliver, and some of the neighborhoods where Rite Aid was the only pharmacy in town, many independents are trying to help out any way we can with those patients that are losing their pharmacy in their neighborhood," the pharmacy owner explained.
Additionally, he said smaller pharmacies offer more than major chains.
"We offer a synchronization of medications so that all the medications for a patient that they take might come do at the same time," Giroux said. "It takes a little effort to get those synchronized and cooperating with prescribers. We also offer compliance packaging, a pill pack, that helps, particularly elderly folks organize their medications. Our goal is to make sure patients take their medications properly."
Here is the full list of the seven pharmacies under Moden-Giroux Inc.:
* Middleport Family Health Center
* Transit Hill Pharmacy
* Rosenkrans Pharmacy
* Hilton Family Pharmacy
* Oakfield Family Pharmacy
* Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy
* Summit Park Pharmacy
Pharmacists across New York State, including Giroux, are also urging lawmakers to pass a bill that will help them stay in business.
Legislation is currently pending in Albany called the Patient Access to Pharmacies Act.
It helps to alleviate some of the marketplace's pressures that led to Rite Aid's bankruptcy. Pharmacists hope to see this bill passed before the legislative session ends this month.
They ask senators to vote for the bill and get it on the agenda.
Last week, Giroux was part of a group of independent pharmacists raising the alarm bell against pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), stating they are the problem with the fall of the chain pharmacy business.
