Browns Pharmacy

10/15/2025

Medicare Open Enrollment is here through December 7th! This is an important time of year to review your Medicare plan to start 2026 on medicare.gov. As a reminder our pharmacy will not be participating with Humana starting 2026. If you would like to continue to use our pharmacy with your Medicare insurance you would need to enroll with a different plan.

For 2026 there is still no longer a donut hole. The maximum deductible in 2026 is $615. The maximum out of pocket is $2100 for the year on your prescriptions. This does not include premium payments.

If you'd like our staff to review your medications and plan options please do not hesitate to ask!

https://www.medicare.gov/health-drug-plans/open-enrollment

10/08/2025

Another small town in upstate NY is losing its pharmacy. It’s sad that PBMs are allowed to continue paying pharmacies below cost. It doesn’t make sense that busy businesses with strong community support continue to close for no fault of their own. It’d be nice if our legislators and governor finally stood up to the PBMs and passed the legislation pharmacies have been proposing for years to avoid situations like this.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CtR2kpbuv/?mibextid=wwXIfr

07/30/2025

This is why PBMs should not be allowed to own pharmacies. They put retail pharmacies out of business through low reimbursements. Then market to those patients to switch to their mail order pharmacy. There’s a clear conflict of interest.

06/24/2025

Thank you to those that contacted our state representatives regarding legislation that would force commercial plans to reimburse pharmacies fairly. Unfortunately, the state government failed to act and pharmacies will continue to regularly be paid far below our cost. Pharmacies will continue to close through out NYS and many communities will lose access to a local convenient healthcare provider. Below is a great article discussing this issue.

Village Apothecary’s Neal Smoller explains how PBMs bleed small pharmacies dry—and why a stalled NY bill could be the lifeline independents need to survive.

05/27/2025

05/14/2025

If you haven't heard already Rite Aid will be closing ALL of their 175 locations in New York State and nearly 2000 across the country. This is nothing Browns Pharmacy celebrates. The same headwinds that forced Rite Aid to this decision affect our pharmacy as well. Pharmacy Benefit Managers, PBMs, like Express Scripts, that reimburse pharmacies for prescription medications for your health plan pay us below our cost on a significant number of prescriptions and essentially all brand name medications like Ozempic, Eliquis, and Lantus.

To help prevent further closures of pharmacies please contact your local representatives to let them know we need to pass NYS bill A5882/S5939. It is called the "Commercial Reimbursement Floor Bill". Thank you for your advocacy and support!

-NYS Senator Peter Oberacker oberacker@nysenate.gov 607-432-5524
-NYS Assemblyman Joe Angelino angelinoj@nyassembly.gov 607-648-6080

Time is also running out for returns and exchanges.

04/08/2025

Please click the link below to let your representatives know you support legislation that will help keep local pharmacies open and bring transparency to the pharmacy insurance industry. Thank you!

https://www.ipcrx.com/legislative-action-center/tell-congress-pbm-reform-creates-savings-for-taxpayers/

03/25/2025

PBMs, like Express Scripts, are middlemen that contract with pharmacies on behalf of health insurance plans. These PBMs get massive rebates, basically kickbacks, from drug manufacturers. Manufacturers have to increase the price of their drugs to keep up with the demand for these kickbacks. This drives up costs for everyone. Bringing transparency to the system can help to eliminate these from driving up drug costs.

Please click the link below to request that your NYS Assemblyman support this transparency. Please update the message body to say you are a resident, not a pharmacist. Thank you!

To unite and empower the profession of pharmacy through advocacy, education, networking, and interprofessional collaboration.

03/21/2025

Did you know many large pharmacies like Wegmans and Kinney Drugs do not fill all your prescriptions at the pharmacy you pick up at? This siphon's away jobs from your community and means less of your money stays local when you use don't use a pharmacy like ours that is filling all your prescriptions locally.

Wegmans wants to lighten the workload for its in-store pharmacists and technicians, and has opened a central location designed to handle most of its next-day prescription refills. The Rochester-based chain

03/20/2025

Spring brings blooming flowers and… allergy season! 🤧 If you suffer from seasonal allergies, we’re here to help you breathe easier this season. Stop by for advice on the best over-the-counter allergy medications and ways to manage symptoms naturally. 🍯💊

03/18/2025

Another reason to love PBMs...CVS Caremark, who processes claims for NYS employees and many other commercial plans in NY, is redirecting their members' prescription claims to various third party discount programs like GoodRx and other PBMs. It'd be rude of us not to point out that other PBMs are doing this as well. This is clearly price fixing and collusion amongst PBMs. This program has been around for more than a year, however, lately they've really ramped things up. Who knows where your private information is ending up once its in the hands of these third parties. Better yet these third parties charge the pharmacy money when they process the claim. It's hard to imagine PBMs aren't getting a kickback for these redirected claims either...

https://ncpa.org/newsroom/news-releases/2025/01/23/ncpa-joins-class-action-suit-against-goodrx-cvs-caremark-corp

https://www.cvshealth.com/news/prescription-savings/cvs-caremark-and-goodrx-to-launch-caremark-cost-saver.html

Caremark Cost Saver is bringing members affordable prescription drug solutions, providing automatic access to the lowest GoodRx prescription prices seamlessly.

03/17/2025

While there may be some short term cost savings to using mail order please consider the long term costs to your community. Local businesses donate to local organizations 💰, hire local employees 👨‍⚕️, and keep local storefronts occupied 🏠!