U District pharmacy closures leave community anxious about medication access

As thousands of pharmacies shutter nationwide, a series of closures in Seattle’s University District has left residents wondering how they’ll access important medications if the trend continues.

“I haven't been able to get the medication I needed, when I needed it,” said Oz Leshem, a University of Washington student.

Leshem, like many students living off-campus in the U District, once relied on the University Village Bartell Drugs for prescriptions. But the pharmacy closed its doors on Jan. 23, following the closure of the University Way location in 2023.

“That was such an essential spot, just for having access so close to where I lived, that was really important,” Leshem said.

Leshem was able to transfer his regular prescriptions to the pharmacy at the University Village QFC — one of three remaining pharmacies serving the roughly 30,000 residents of the neighborhood — but said he was concerned that the smaller pharmacy may not meet all of his medical needs. He recently struggled to get antibiotics and said many of his friends have found themselves in similar situations.

RELATED: More urban pharmacies are disappearing. What's driving the closures?

The QFC pharmacy has positioned itself as an alternative to the shuttered Bartell Drugs, but occupies a smaller physical space, making it difficult to fill prescriptions at the same volume.

“They can only fill so many prescriptions in a closed space,” said Ryan Hansen, the UW Pharmacy department chair and a pharmacist with Kelley-Ross Pharmacy group. “You can’t just go from doing 300 or 400 prescriptions a day to 1,000 overnight.”

QFC has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

The two other pharmacies currently serving the area are the on-campus UW Rubenstein Pharmacy and the outpatient pharmacy at UW’s Montlake Medical Center.

Like the QFC pharmacy, Rubenstein has absorbed former Bartell Drugs patients. According to Joel Schwartzkopf, executive director of Husky Health Center, Rubenstein takes most major insurance plans and is designed to accommodate the needs of students.

“It is specifically there to cater to the UW community, and so we have a bigger buffer when the economic situation changes like it has for retail pharmacies,” Schwartzkopf said.

More than 2,000 pharmacies nationwide closed their doors in 2024, according to data compiled by the American Economic Liberties Project. One contributing factor is decreasing insurance reimbursement rates for prescription drugs, according to Hansen. This means that pharmacies themselves end up absorbing the costs of many medications.

RELATED: Walgreens will close 1,200 stores, hoping for a turnaround

“The patient walking to the next closest pharmacy doesn't make that prescription any more profitable or [help a pharmacy] break even,” Hansen said. “So I think what we see as community pharmacists is having to make really tough choices and tell people, ‘I can’t fill that same prescription that put your Bartell’s out of business because if I did, it’s putting me out of business.’”

Reimbursement rates vary for different medications and can be attributed to a number of factors, including inflation and negotiations between pharmacies, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers, Hansen added.

He also noted that brand-name medications are often the most impacted by decreasing reimbursement rates, but any type of drug could be impacted.

Recent federal changes have placed additional pressure on pharmacies.

“I think the biggest change we’re dealing with right now — and it’s coming from the federal level — is the Inflation Reduction Act has allowed the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services to start negotiating drug prices,” Hansen said.

The bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 works, in part, to lower prescription drug costs for Americans with Medicare. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the drug pricing provisions in the act would reduce the federal deficit by $237 billion by 2031. These provisions enabled the negotiating of drug prices with hopes of reducing costs on the consumer end.

Hansen further explained that the negotiations may result in larger negative reimbursement periods for pharmacies.

“That’s going to stretch the cash flow for those businesses that are already struggling and could very likely result in additional closures,” Hansen said.

That prospect makes Leshem nervous.

“It really seems like an issue that will get out of hand, probably all over the country and for the students that are here internationally,” Leshem said. “I’m an out-of-state student and I’m from New Mexico, so I depend heavily on pharmacies and medical clinics that are in short proximity to me.”

For his part, Schwartzkopf said he’s confident that Rubenstein Pharmacy is well-positioned going forward. He voiced concern, however, for other university pharmacies across the country, as well as other Seattle pharmacies.

“I really hope that we can find a solution to benefit the greater UW community and the neighborhoods around us,” Schwartzkopf said, “so that nobody experiences a pharmacy desert and that people get the medication they need when they need it.”

This story was published in partnership with the University of Washington's student News Lab.