CAMBRIA, Calif- When Cambria Village Pharmacy closed, Cambria Drug & Gift opened up to a lot more patients. "We didn't have much notice we found out on Friday that they were going to be closing on Saturday," says the owner, Sue Heading.
Two days later all the patients files were transferred here to Cambria Drug & Gift. Dana Nelson, the owner of Village Pharmacy, owns another pharmacy in San Luis Obispo, Health Plus Pharmacy, we called his office and he had this recorded message.
"A financial perfect storm has hit the good ship health plus, we believe we have survived the worst of the storm but we are not in calm seas yet."
Heading says having an independent pharmacy, like Nelsons, is a struggle because prices of drugs are going up and payment from insurers are going down. "Many more people going mail order and insurance companies insisting that you go mail order or people getting their drugs out of country, its been hard." Heading goes on to say more people are going off, or losing their insurance benefits, and not filling their prescriptions or they are simply taking less drugs.
They are keeping up though, for a few different reasons. They are a bigger store and sell over the counter drugs, as well as merchandise. Since Village Pharmacy's closure this store has been busy, they have even hired one of Village's old employees, but Heading says it is still a struggle and they are doing everything they can to stay in business.
