Question: What would you get if the pharmacy business all of a sudden had to charge the same price everywhere for an item?
Answer: Better service. The current Medicare Part D system will require just that.
Tonight I saw a Walgreen’s ad on the TV and if it is to be believed, the only differentiator of significance between pharmacies will become the service they offer.
A very interesting unintended consequence of forcing them to standardize prices.
[From Unintended consequences]
I have the opportunity to use mail-order pharmacies for Rx meds we use here, but I don’t. My local pharmacy has my business for life, or as long as their head pharmacist is there. When my daughter (5 or 6 at the time) had a really deep chest cough that was giving a lot of trouble, we dropped off the scrip but he found that he didn’t have the right ingredients. By looking at the scrip he knew it was important, so he called on his own to find a pharmacy that had the stuff and transferred the prescription to them. He called me to tell me where it was waiting without being worried about the loss of the sale.
That’s service.