CVS, Walmart Latest To Cut Pharmacy Hours, May Impact IL Locations

ILLINOIS — Timing will soon be everything in filling prescriptions in Illinois after announcements from some of the nation’s largest drugstore chains that they will reduce pharmacy hours amid a nationwide pharmacist shortage.

CVS said hours will be adjusted at about two-thirds of its nearly 9,000 U.S. pharmacies in March because of staffing concerns, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Walmart also said Friday it will close pharmacies at 7 p.m., rather than 9 p.m., at its 4,600 stores, CNN reported.

Walgreens, which operates 8,886 drugstores, has previously said it has reduced hours at thousands of its stores. Rite Aid, which has around 2,290 stores, also has said it has adjusted hours amid the pharmacist shortage, USA Today reported.

Together, the four chains operate more than 24,500 retail pharmacies.

Illinois has thousands of pharmacies run by CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart across the state that are cutting hours as they struggle to fully staff their pharmacies.

CVS said it will reduce pharmacy hours when patient traffic is low, or when there’s only one pharmacist on duty.

“By adjusting hours in select stores this spring, we ensure our pharmacy teams are available to serve patients when they’re most needed,” CVS Pharmacy Lead Director of External Communications Amy Thibault told USA Today.

Both the reduced hours and retail pharmacy closures are likely to hit lower-income patients the most, Cheryl Wisseh, an assistant professor of pharmacy at the University of California, Irvine, told USA Today in December.

“It becomes a vacuum where you have patients who can’t get the services they used to get,” Wisseh said. “It’s affecting older adults, those of low socioeconomic status, and racial and ethnic minorities the most.”

The number of pharmacists employed nationwide dropped by about 1 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The pharmacist shortage isn’t due to one issue alone. Part of it is wage stagnation, or even falling wages that amount to even greater pay cuts when adjusted for inflation, The New York Times reported. Other challenges include the increasing say of benefit managers over drug prices and COVID-19 pandemic burnout.

Chains aren’t alone in the struggle to find pharmacists.

More than three-fourths of independent drugstore owners answering a National Community Pharmacists Association survey in August said difficulty filling pharmacist positions had led to higher payroll costs and longer wait times for customers filling prescriptions.