Pharmacy Access in the Klamath Basin
Category
Access
Klamath Falls and its outlying communities are picture book rural.
The pros of picturesque American landscapes, nature, and farmland surrounding our community can sometimes be weighed against the cons of access to the man-made essentials of society.
The shuttering of the Bi-Mart pharmacy back in 2021, and the limited staffing at Rite Aid around the same time, was a wakeup call for Klamath Falls and outlying areas to the important role our pharmacies play in our community.
“If you remove one major pharmacy from the mix, it becomes a huge inconvenience for those people. Every pharmacy has a good customer base, and if you pull one out you have to spread those customers around to other pharmacies.”
– Tom Hottman, retired Sky Lakes Public Information officer via Herald and News
Meeting Demand
To ensure access, Sky Lakes invested in a third pharmacy location to meet the community’s needs.
The Washburn Pharmacy opened in May 2023. The prescription volume has been steadily increasing since opening as it absorbs unfulfilled demand.
In Klamath Falls today, we are back to a relative equilibrium of pharmacy supply and community demand for prescriptions. However, the same risk that existed back in 2021 persists today. If we lose one of our pharmacies, then we will have a large customer base looking to change their prescriptions to pharmacies that are operating close to capacity. This could lead back to the long lines and waits that we saw a few years ago.
“We saw a need in our community, we opened the Washburn pharmacy to serve our patients and our providers”
-Samantha Muir, Retail Pharmacy Manager at
Sky Lakes.
“Our Washburn Pharmacy was built with the anticipation of increased volume;” Muir mentioned. “We have the capacity to take care of our community.”
The Klamath Falls area and surrounding communities do not currently have access to a specialty pharmacy. Currently, for our community members who need access to specialty medications, their only options are to go outside of the community or to order online. Sky Lakes will open a specialty pharmacy in Fall 2024 (see article on page 15).
Sky Lakes will continue to evolve to meet the needs of the community.
