The right Rx In the Mon Valley, independent pharmacies have stood the test of time
Mary Hasch has been working at Janosik’s Pharmacy for 51 years.
Joe Janosik
Pharmacy technician Breann Saxberg counting pills at Dierken’s Pharmacy in Monongahela.
Medved’s Pharmacy in Charleroi.
When Joe Janosik’s grandfather bought a pharmacy in Monessen, he started what would become a three-generation family business. The original location, a few doors down on Sixth Street, had a soda and ice cream bar. “We’ve been here since the 1930s,” recalls Janosik. “We have customers come in and say they remember getting a cherry Coke or root beer float there.”
When Janosik’s Pharmacy moved to its current location in the 1960s, it didn’t have room for a soda bar, but the trademark customer service and personal attention stayed. “I interned at a chain, and it’s different,” Janosik explains. “Patients are more a number instead of the personal service you get at an independent pharmacy.”
Independent pharmacy owners around the Mon Valley share the same philosophy when it comes to standing the test of time and competing against big chain competitors. In Charleroi, Rudy Medved, owner and pharmacist at Medved’s Pharmacy, says his establishment can offer folks things the big-box stores can’t, including more time to answer important questions. “I even have customers from chains call me with questions about certain medications because they say my pharmacist didn’t have time to tell me,” Medved says.
Both independent and chain pharmacies offer customers different services that dictate where someone will shop: the convenience of a business being open 24 hours is crucial to one person, while home delivery may be more convenient for others. Medved bought the old Gezzer’s Pharmacy in 1991, having worked for the previous owner right out of college. That owner felt it was important to sell to someone both he and customers already knew, while Medved saw a golden opportunity for his family. “I had two little children and was working nights, holidays and weekends, and this gave me more freedom to be home at night and on holidays, too.”
Medved had worked for a chain pharmacy for five years and was exhausted by the long hours and, at times, even by some of the customers. “Even the people who come in the chains … some don’t want to be friendly,” he notes. “It’s sterile – give me my prescription and I’m gone.” With his independent pharmacy, Medved says he is able to focus on his family while serving others. “My favorite thing is probably the hours I have,” he adds. “I’m off with my family on Saturday night and all day Sunday, and that’s important to be home with the family. But the patients are almost like family, too. You know them and their kids and grandkids.”
Treating customers like family means going the extra mile. “I’ve even taken prescriptions at 6 or 7 p.m. after we’ve closed up,” Medved says. “If it’s something these people can’t wait for until the morning delivery, I’ll go ahead and take it over to them.” He’s even opened the store on Sundays to meet customers who ran out of medication and needed an emergency refill.
In Monongahela, Dierken’s Pharmacy on East Main Street represents an independent pharmacy that’s been around for more than a century. The original McCallister’s Pharmacy opened in the early 1900s, then became Dierken’s in the 1920s. Ownership has changed through the decades, but the commitment to personalized service remains the same. Pharmacist and manager Andrea Spano came to Dierken’s two years ago after previously working for a chain pharmacy. “I did not like how numbers-driven everything felt, and I didn’t like that I felt I couldn’t provide personalized care in that setting,” Spano says. “That’s what attracted me to independent pharmacy, and that’s why I’m happy here now. I have the time to get to know my patients, to speak with them, follow up with them. That’s what I really like about an independent pharmacy.”
That personalized service takes time, and that can make it difficult for independence pharmacies to compete with the big guys when it comes to numbers. “We do have to work very hard to have a good reputation and to attract people,” Spano says. “There’s always a niche of people who want personalized service and want to walk in and have somebody know their name.”
Janosik remembers roughly 80 percent of customers paying cash for prescriptions when he first started, which meant more competition on prices. He says third-party prescription drug coverage has leveled the playing field somewhat with the big chains since drug prices now are fairly uniform.
If drug prices are the same, what makes customers choose an independent pharmacy? Spano credits personal attention. “We have the opportunity to follow a patient through an event or treatment,” she says. “I may see them once a month, and I can ask them how they’re recovering from a surgery or how their diet is going or how they are feeling on a new drug. People keep coming back here because we’re nice, we have free delivery and we know them.”
While big-box businesses in many sectors are starting to tout delivery as a “new” service, independent pharmacies have been delivering all along. Janosik and Medved both say it’s not unusual for them to drop off prescriptions to patients in the evenings after the shops close. “The independents started delivery services years ago, and we’ve been delivering forever,” Janosik adds. “It’s not unusual if a patient gets a prescription phoned in late and they need it that night and they can’t get down here, I’ll drop it off on my way home from work.”
While both Janosik and Medved have fielded offers from big chains to buy their pharmacies, neither one seems to be interested so far. Janosik says, “I’ve talked to other pharmacists who sold to different chains and none of them seem to be as happy as they were when they owned their store.”