CHARLOTTE — Prescriptions delivered to your door can be convenient and a lifesaver if you don’t live near a pharmacy. Now, two retail giants are investing more in same-day delivery for customers in the Carolinas.
Rod Hanson says he gets his prescriptions in the mail, through Veterans Affairs.
“When I’m running low … I just call them and I get it within three or four days,” he told Action 9 investigator Jason Stoogenke.
CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens deliver too. But they’ve all experienced turmoil lately.
CVS has been closing 900 stores over the past three years and its CEO suddenly stepped down last month. Rite Aid weathered bankruptcy, but lost hundreds of stores in the process, and Walgreens recently announced plans to close around 1,200 locations.
Enter Amazon and Walmart.
Amazon Pharmacy’s chief medical officer, Dr. Vin Gupta, told Stoogenke that if a patient in the Charlotte area orders meds on Amazon, right now they’ll arrive within two days.
But the company wants same-day delivery here, and Gupta says to make that happen, it plans to open a distribution center here next year.
“We think we’re building Pharmacy 3.0,” he said. “By 10 a.m., if you check out and say, ‘I want my insulin,’ by, reasonably, between 2 and 4 p.m. that same day ... it’ll be… at your doorstep.”
Walmart is already delivering drugs in six states, including South Carolina. It told Stoogenke it’s adding North Carolina next year.
“Nearly half of U.S. counties have some version of a pharmacy desert … where a brick-and-mortar facility is say, outside a 10-mile radius of a dense community and a lot of people are not able to, especially as you get older, navigate that commute. And it’s part of the reason why 30% of the people don’t refill their scripts on time,” Gupta said.
So, the way he sees it, same-day delivery means patients staying on their meds and avoiding bigger problems later.
Obviously, Amazon and Walmart are legitimate companies. But still be careful buying meds online. In early October, federal prosecutors in New York charged 18 people for allegedly selling tens of thousands of counterfeit drugs through fake online pharmacies to unsuspecting patients across the country, killing at least one person.
The FDA says a legitimate online pharmacy:
- Won’t dispense medicines without a prescription.
- Has a physical address and phone number.
- Is certified (check online here).
The FDA has more information on its website.
Want to see if a pharmacist is licensed in N.C. or S.C.?
Check here for N.C.
Check here for S.C.
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