Independent Pharmacies Face Mounting Challenges in Modern Health Care Landscape | McKesson ideaShare

Independent pharmacies are navigating a complex and challenging health care environment, with economic pressures and evolving regulatory requirements threatening their sustainability. In an interview at McKesson ideaShare in Nashville, Tennessee, from July 10 to 13, 2025, Crystal Lennartz, president of Health Mart & Health Mart Atlas at McKesson, discusses the company's Health Mart franchise, which supports over 4400 independent pharmacies nationwide. She states that these pharmacies are struggling with reimbursement issues, operational complexities, and the need to expand clinical services. Their approach focuses on providing multifaceted solutions that help pharmacies not just survive but potentially thrive in a rapidly changing health care ecosystem.

The future of independent pharmacies appears to be increasingly centered on expanded clinical services. These emerging opportunities include immunizations, medication therapy management, and point-of-care testing. By diversifying their service offerings, pharmacies can become more integral to patient care and create additional revenue streams. McKesson's strategy aims to enable pharmacies to focus on patient care by handling backend support, including business operations, marketing assistance, and advocacy. Independent pharmacies are crucial health care access points, particularly in communities where traditional medical infrastructure might be limited.

Drug Topics®: What challenges do you see independent pharmacies facing today?

Crystal Lennartz: Independent pharmacies are facing a lot of economic and operational pressures today. One of the major significant things that is impacting them is the ability to be reimbursed adequately for the clinical services that they provide, and they're faced with a lot of regulatory changes that are impacting pharmacy and their scope of practice. That's why we're focused on strengthening the health of pharmacies and also providing them with the operational and clinical tools that they need to succeed.

Drug Topics: What solutions and services does McKesson provide to support the health of community pharmacies?

Lennartz: McKesson provides a variety of solutions to support the health of community pharmacies. HealthMart is our independent pharmacy franchise, and we support over 4400 pharmacies across the nation, and then we also have HealthMart Atlas, which is our pharmacy services initiative organization. We help with payer contracting and reimbursement and help with transparency and monitoring of that. Then [we] also [have] provider pay, which helps to make sure that pharmacies get paid for every claim that they deserve and matches that payment, and then, from an overall McKesson perspective, we also are providing them with operational support, like inventory management support. McKesson's automated potential inventory management solution, like Community Solutions, helps to ensure they have adequate inventory on hand to meet the patient's needs when they need them but helps them reduce any unnecessary inventory at a time when cash flow is really tight. So it's important to make sure that that's optimized. We're also supporting in terms of vaccinations, as that's a growing area that pharmacies are providing and making sure that the cost for the product that they provide and that they're adequately reimbursed as well.

Drug Topics: What are some of the greatest opportunities for community pharmacies in the current environment?

Lennartz: Some of the greatest opportunities for community pharmacies in our current environment [are] the expansion of services that they provide, so whether it be immunizations or medication therapy management [or] point-of-care testing. [It's] the ability to really meet the needs of the whole patient and be able to expand that care and be reimbursed for it.

Drug Topics: How do Health Mart/Health Mart Atlas enable member pharmacies to thrive, grow, and take advantage of emerging opportunities?

Lennartz: From a HealthMart perspective, we help to provide in terms of business operations, marketing, support, [and] advocacy so that the pharmacies can focus on what they do best, which is taking care of patients. From a HealthMart Atlas perspective, we're focused on the financial health of the pharmacy to help make navigating, contracting, and payment for those services easier and a little bit more transparent as well.

Drug Topics: What is your vision for the future of Health Mart, and how will it continue to support the business of pharmacy?

Lennartz: When we think about the future of pharmacy and the expansion of services, HealthMart wants to continue to help to support, whether it be advancement of clinical services or optimizing their operational efficiency, and I'm optimistic about the future of independent pharmacy and how HealthMart can continue to grow and support.

Drug Topics: Is there anything we haven’t discussed already that you’d like to add?

Lennartz: There's a lot of excitement here at ideaShare. It's an opportunity for independent pharmacies to connect and grow [and] share ideas, and we're really looking forward to next year already in Denver, so we hope that even more pharmacies can join us here.

Read More of Our Coverage Here