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| Teton Pharmacy owner Jason Bailey |
Teton Pharmacy had a grand opening and ribbon cutting Tuesday at its branch at 1855 West Broadway, in the same building as Papa' Murphy's Pizza.
This is part of an expansion and refiguring of the business since Jason Bailey bought it in 2008. After decades off Channing Way, Bailey moved the pharmacy, home health, hospice and medical equipment business to a new, 6,000-square-foot building on Hitt Road, south of Sunnyside. "Being so far on the east side, we found we needed a branch to serve our customers on the west side," he said.
The big question is, of course, how does a relatively small, local operator compete with Walgreen's, which will have a brand new store at Skyline and West Broadway open by then end of the year?
In 2011, the pharmacy giant took a hard stand with Blue Cross of Idaho and decided not to re-sign its contract with Express Scripts, Blue Cross' pharmacy benefits manager. Blue Cross balked, and sent a a letter to members saying that allowing Walgreen's back into the network would result in higher fees that would be passed on to members. When Walgreen's tried to renegotiate, Blue Cross said no.
This means that people employed by the Idaho National Laboratory, the city of Idaho Falls and Idaho Falls School District 91 have to pay significantly more to have their prescriptions fills at Walgreen's. The situation will remain that way until at least 2017.
"It is a big advantage," Bailey said. "The other advantage is that at Walgreen's you wait 45 minutes for a prescription and we can have you in and out of here in less than 10."
