The announcement in the window of the North Albany Medicap Pharmacy on Thursday, April 20, 2023.
The choice of pharmacies in Albany is getting smaller once again with the announcement that two local Medicap outlets will close next month.
It was in the fall of 2021 that all Bi-Mart stores in Oregon, including the one in Albany, went out of the pharmacy business and transferred prescription records to Walgreen’s.
As an occasional customer, I had waited in line at Bi-Mart until I got tired of that routine and switched to an online pharmacy that sends medications through the mail.
Since then, I’ve often seen a long line of people waiting at the pharmacy in the Albany Fred Meyer, and it seemed as though the line there had gotten longer since the closure of the Bi-Mart pharmacy across the street.
Waiting in line is a nuisance, even if you have the time.
That’s why the Medicap outlet in the North Albany IGA Supermarket was welcome. You could usually do business there instantly, without any wait at all.
Now the Medicap outlets there and at 1333 Clay St. S.E. are both closing. The North Albany one will be closed after May 4 and the Clay Street location after May 2, according to public notices published in the local paper on Thursday.
The business said its customers’ pharmacy records will be moved to the pharmacy in the Albany Safeway store off 14th Avenue. Customers may also request transfers to other pharmacies.
Medicap stores are locally owned franchise operations. For the owner of the two Albany outlets, it was a business decision to close, I was told.
When Bi-Mart shut down its pharmacies in 2021, the company said that “factors such as increasing costs and ongoing reimbursement pressure” led to the decision. News reports at the time said Oregon’s business tax on gross revenue was one of the factors.
I don’t know exactly what caused the demise of the two local Medicap operations, except that the closure is an inconvenience to the customers they served.
Let’s hope there aren’t any more pharmacy closures, or the wait in line at the remaining ones will get longer still. (hh)
There is something fundamentally wrong when the demand for something continues to grow, and the licensed outlets for the disbursement of those products continues to decrease. I’ve been a Medicap customer for 30 years. It has been neat to watch their businesses sales growth. Now they close? I suspect the long arm of government, but there’s got to be some kind of explanation as to the reason.
This dedicated consumer of all things Hering could not agree more.
This sordid affair…the cancelation culture that despises locally-owned business with a level of hot-to-the-touch hostility … risible hate so powerful that this Woke Movement would force foreclosure on struggling businesses who are not part and parcel with Big Pharma … well it is simply shocking. Apparently the Deep State has determined that small, locally-owned businesses are unworthy. We should all expect that soon we will be standing on-line at the Elon Musk Drug Store.
This is devastating news to me. I’ve been a Medicap customer for eight years. It was always a pleasure to go there and the drive-thru so incredibly convenient. I won’t do pharmacy business with a store that I have to park and go inside to pick up my Rx’s. I have difficulty walking long distances and thus the reason for not using Costco all of these years. It’s going to be a hard decision for me as to where I want to transfer for my Rx’s.
Walgreens has a drive up pharmacy. That might be an option for you if you are unable to walk the long distances into the stores. I’ve had the same kind of problem before so can totally understand
Oregon’s business tax on gross profits is driving them out of business. Will only get worse.
Yes, the unfair business tax is a big part of the problem.
I am a self-employed victim of ObamaCare, I could not keep my Doctor and I could keep Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield. No I don’t want to pay $1500 dollars per month with a 7000 deductible per person. I have 5 uninsured children.
So I pay cash for my Prescriptions, I go where they are cheapest. I use GoodRX.
There is some thing very wrong with Capitalism when I pay over $900 at Fred Meyer and $15 at Safeway for the exact same prescription. This happens over an over again. $150 at Walgreens, $15 at Safeway. I used to go Fred Meyer, now I am going to Safeway.
So much for a free and fair market place! This is perfect proof that American does not live by capitalistic principles, it’s called Crony Capitalism. America is the best at it..
Did Fred Meyer Pharmacy reject GoodRx on your particular prescriptions? And, you no doubt use GoodRx at Safeway, too. I use a combination of GoodRx, the country of Canada, and my Part D Medicare (which is awful, but it is run by big Pharma, so of course it is awful…thank you, George W. Bush!) If you don’t get Part D (for drugs) when you hit age 65, you will be fined by the government in some way or other (probably through an increase in your Part B premium), so I had to get it.
Sure, I could give up my Original Medicare and get an Advantage Plan and have Part D rolled into that; but, no, thanks, I will not make a deal with the devil and let huge insurance companies run my medical care even more than they already do.
I’m giving up years of getting care at Corvallis Clinic, because they are quitting Original Medicare on January 1, 2024. C. Clinic is only accepting Medicare Advantage, after Jan. 1, 2024, which is run by big insurance companies. Advantage is NOT run by Medicare. Advantage companies (such as United Health Care and Cigna) rob funds from the Medicare coffers to make their CEOs and shareholders richer.
If you stay at Corvallis Clinic after 1/1/24 and keep your Original Medicare, you have to pay full price up front, then send in your own forms to Medicare to try to get reimbursed for a fraction of what you have paid.
Health care in this country is tanking or has already tanked.
And yet our congressman said they were going to help us however they did nothing. And neither did Governor Brown at the time and it appears that our current governor will do nothing either. And you people voted for them keep that in mind when elections come up.
Most likely the increased competition with online pharmacy services today, Amazon is the latest one that jumped into that business. But yes, it’s good to support local businesses rather than Amazon and so forth if we want these to be around,.
I’m almost 64 and thank God I take zero prescriptions. My heart goes out to those who do and the rip-off price they have to pay for most drugs.
My husband and I have used Medicap for the past 27 years, and it truly saddened me
when I found out Tuesday that they were closing. The owners have always been
gracious, helpful and very professional. It is truly a real loss to this community. I wish
all of them the best.
Well Hasso, congratulations to you for joining us in getting our drugs in the mail.
Yes, delivered by the guvmint postal service.
Still this line of yours….. “Waiting in line is a nuisance, even if you have the time.”
Is that a whiff of Boomer elitism?
For all those who are curious as to why the two Medicap pharmacies are closing. Please take the time to look up PBM’s and DIR fees. When you have insurance companies and the likes of CVS and the other big pharmacy stores teaming up to game these businesses out of existence, you will have your answers to why these two will be closing. Another in Dallas Oregon closed a few weeks ago as well. That particular store had been in business for 50 years. Look it up, it is happening nationwide. Bimart was just the beginning in Oregon, and if your politicians don’t figure this out soon there will only be a few left. The lines you see now will be nothing compared to what you will see in the next five years. This was a very difficult decision on a lot of levels. Mostly for the care we provided for our customers and the employees. Ultimately it came down to the fact that there wasn’t enough money coming in to keep the doors open. The DIR fees in the last two years have gone up over 90%, throw in the state CAT tax and there just wasn’t anything left at the end of the month, and it’s been that way for two years now. We will miss our customers, but nearly all of the employees will be going to Safeway so come say hi!!
Best wishes to you all, Jennifer!
“News reports at the time said Oregon’s business tax on gross revenue was one of the factors.”
Good ole CAT tax strikes again. Once again voters believed the lies that a CAT tax would force “rich” companies to ‘pay their fair share’. I tried to tell folks NOT to vote for it, that it wasn’t just the ‘rich’ companies that would pay…your local convenience store, your local gas station, your local pharmacy, your local clothing store, your local restaurants…any company that does more than a million in gross revenue, which is easy to do given prices now days.