The corner of Highway 153 and Gadd Road has long housed competing pharmacies, which ended last fall after Walgreen’s acquired Eckerd’s Drugs across the street.
But an independent pharmacy known as the Medicine Counter opened last week to bring back competing pharmacies at the intersection.
Himanshu Patel, a 29-year-old pharmacist who previously worked as a pharmacy manager for CVS Drugs in Ringgold, opened his own 1,500-square-foot drug store in the Gadd Crossing Shopping Center across from the Hixson Walgreens.
“I felt like I wasn’t taking care of my patients the way I would like and wanted to at the big pharmacy chains so I decided to open my own pharmacy,” Patel said.
After securing his lease for the Hixson store in August, he has worked to prepare for this week’s opening and is hopeful of building a successful business as an independent pharmacy.
Similar locally owned pharmacies affiliated with HealthMart Pharmacy like Patel already operate in Sale Creek, Ooltewah and Fort Oglethorpe. But nationwide, the number of independently owned pharmacies has been cut in half over the past half century and shrunk to an estimated 21,909 today, according to the National Community Pharmacists Association, which advocates for small business pharmacies.
About two thirds of all drug prescriptions are filled by pharmacy chains, online services or health care providers.
Patel, who has worked for the past five years at chain owned pharmacies, said he wanted to work more directly with consumers to help them with their drug prescription needs and to operate on a more focused time schedule which he said his own independent pharmacy can offer.
Unlike the Walgreens drug store across the street that is open 24 hours a day, Medicine Counter will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The drug store is closed on Sunday.
In a flyer sent to 5,000 area households about the new Medicine Counter, Patel brags that his “patient care is above and beyond” that of other stores. “Does your pharmacist really know you personally?” Patel asks.
“The chains are interested in returns for their stockholders and often times don’t have as many technicians and we as pharmacists don’t have as much time to talk with our customers,” he said of his experience with larger drug store chains.
Patel said he is training another pharmacist and employs another pharmacy tech as he builds his new business.
“I have contracts with all of the major insurance companies except Express Scripts, which is still pending right now and I hope to soon have approved,” he said.
In addition to prescription drugs, the Medicine Counter also sells over-the-counter vitamins, supplements, herbals and cold products.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340