Bob and Elaine Sample
It’s official, on August 31, 2020, the Grand Marais Pharmacy will close its doors for good, leaving the county without an independent pharmacy open to the public.
Not long ago, the county had two pharmacies to choose from but Arrowhead Pharmacy ceased operating almost two years ago and the building was sold to the Grand Marais Art Colony.
Bob Sample opened the Grand Marais Pharmacy in 2011. His wife, Elaine, ran Elaine’s Hair Designs in the lower half of the log building located at 425 West Highway 61 on the corner of the old Gunflint Trail entrance.
While the community will be without a local place to pick up prescriptions, the Sawtooth Mountain Clinic has plans to open a full-service on-site pharmacy by January 2021.
When contacted in Iowa where he is now living, Bob Sample said that Grand Marais Pharmacy customers will be given cards with information about where they can access their prescriptions either online or by picking them up at Walgreens in Duluth. “Or any Walgreens in the country, for that matter,” he said.
Co-pays will be smaller than at the Grand Marais Pharmacy and the turn around time to get prescriptions filled, he said, would be one to two days.
However, he worries about getting acute prescriptions filled. “We tried to get the Sawtooth Mountain Clinic to buy us but they wouldn’t. That would have taken care of the patients who have acute diagnoses—a heart problem, cancer– and need medicine immediately. We made several attempts with them but they had their own plans, I guess, and weren’t interested.”
When asked why the business was closing, Bob responded sadly,
“The pharmacy was busy, but it wasn’t making any money. Our co-pays kept getting smaller and smaller to the point we were losing money and we just couldn’t keep operating like that. ”
Sample blamed Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) as a big part of the problem. PBMs serve as go-betweens between patients and insurance companies.
Originally PBMs worked to negotiate lower prices for patients, determining which medicines insurance companies will cover and how much the insurance plans will pay. Bob said PBMs do well with big box chains like Walgreens and CVS, but independent pharmacies have seen their co-pays reduced to the point that, “hundreds of independent pharmacies throughout Minnesota have gone out of business and thousands of independent pharmacies throughout the country have gone of of business.”
Bob and Elaine Sample moved back to Iowa where Bob has been working to start an assisted-living facility as well as working part-time as a pharmacist. They sold their home in Tofte this June, after it had been on the market for two years.
Sawtooth Mountain Clinic Director Kate Surbaugh was asked if the doors to its new pharmacy could be open sooner since the Grand Marais Pharmacy is closing. She responded,“Sawtooth is saddened to hear the news about the Grand Marais Pharmacy. Unfortunately, we can’t really rush the in-house pharmacy project – it’s a complex process with lots of state and federal oversight. We are still on track to open January 2021.
“However, Sawtooth Mountain Clinic is working on a plan to help patients connect to pharmacy services between the time the Grand Marais Pharmacy closes and when our in-house pharmacy opens. We will release details as soon as we have them set.”
As for Bob, he said he feels bad for the employees losing their jobs. “We really tried to figure out a way to make it work, but we couldn’t. It’s sad. It’s a sad thing but we have no choice but to close.”
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