Rite Aid Buys Independent Pharmacy Tuttle's

[Alpha8472]

The independent pharmacy Tuttle's, which has operated for almost 8 decades, will close and records will be transferred to a Rite Aid.

The pharmacy cited terrible money losing reimbursement rates from insurance companies which led to the pharmacy closing.

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/n ... sale-to-r/

[Super S]

What bothers me about this is not just the fact you have a company whose future is questionable at best buying independents just for basically the prescription files, and closing the stores. If Rite Aid does cease to exist, which is very possible, they will basically eliminate two choices and there will be less competition. In Kelso, WA for instance, they took over Furness Drug, which is now closed. If Rite Aid closes the Kelso location, you will have a CVS Pharmacy inside Target, and a Safeway pharmacy to choose from, and while Fred Meyer, Walmart, Walgreens, and two Safeways are present in Longview, they aren't as convenient for many.

(I did not count Kaiser Permanente's Pharmacy in Longview as they pretty much serve Kaiser members only)

[mbz321]

Hoe does Rite Aid have money to buy anything these days? Makes no sense.

[HCal]

Hoe does Rite Aid have money to buy anything these days? Makes no sense.

They didn't buy the business, just the prescription files. For an independent, low-volume pharmacy, that may have been fairly cheap, and the bankruptcy court would have no reason to deny it.

[storewanderer]

Hoe does Rite Aid have money to buy anything these days? Makes no sense.

File buys are a normal part of doing business. I am surprised the court doesn't have to approve this, but I haven't seen anything in the Docket about it. I really do think Rite Aid planned a quick in/out of bankruptcy but something has happened quite recently and I am not sure now what is going to happen...

This deal was likely reached months ago when the Rite Aid bankruptcy looked like a quick in/out and is just now going through; just so happens to be a week when very choppy news for Rite Aid showed up involving their hiring of those Hilco/SB360 liquidators.

Also note in the article the pharmacist says he is going to go work at Rite Aid.

My guess is it went something like this: pharmacy puts out intention to close and files go up for bid. Bids come in from Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Safeway... or maybe Safeway didn't even bid, who knows... because especially in that specific market area where they have a lot of stores, I'd have taken their bid...

In this case pharmacist still wanted to work... so the option of working at Walgreens, CVS, or Rite Aid... probably chose Rite Aid due to it sounding like the best option... maybe knows some other pharmacists and heard positive things about Rite Aid. Or fewer horror stories about Rite Aid. Rite Aid also reportedly has a very good pharmacy software, many people who have worked at all three chains say the Rite Aid software is by far the best.