The numbers, plainly
Hundreds of independent pharmacies have closed in Mississippi and across the United States in the past several years. The closures are not distributed evenly. They concentrate in rural areas, in lower income neighborhoods, and in the small Mississippi towns where the local pharmacy was already the closest thing to primary care for many residents.
When a small town pharmacy closes, the result is what public health researchers call a pharmacy desert. A community where the nearest pharmacy is far enough away that residents, particularly older residents and residents without reliable transportation, may not be able to consistently access their medications.
Pharmacy deserts are growing across Mississippi. Many of the towns affected are in the parts of the state that already have the highest rates of chronic disease, the lowest rates of insurance coverage, and the longest distances to the nearest hospital.
What is causing the closures
There is no single cause, but the dominant one is well understood inside the pharmacy industry and almost invisible outside it. Pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen between insurance companies and pharmacies, set the rates at which pharmacies are reimbursed for filling prescriptions. For years, those reimbursement rates for many medications have been below what the medications cost the pharmacy to acquire.
When that gap widens, pharmacies lose money on prescriptions. Chains can absorb that pressure for a while because of scale. Independents often cannot. The DIR fee structure, which clawed back additional reimbursement after the fact, compounded the problem for years until federal rule changes started to address it.
I have watched pharmacies I respect close in Mississippi towns where there is no replacement for them. The owners did not fail. They were reimbursed below cost for too long, on too many prescriptions, and the math stopped working.
Why this matters for families that have never used an independent
If your family has used chain pharmacies for years and never set foot in an independent, you might reasonably wonder why any of this affects you. Three reasons.
First, when an independent pharmacy closes in your town, it does not just affect the patients who used it. It increases volume at the remaining pharmacies. Wait times go up. Counter time per patient goes down. Pharmacists become more stretched. The clinical quality of the experience at the surviving pharmacies decreases, often quietly, before anyone notices.
Second, the independents are often the only pharmacies that provide certain services in their communities. Compounding. Same day delivery to homebound patients. Specialty medication coordination. Disaster response. When the independent closes, those services usually disappear from the town entirely. The chain that remains will not pick them up.
Third, the independent is often the local pharmacy that knows the patient population intimately and serves as a quiet safety net for the most vulnerable. The pharmacy that extends credit when needed. The pharmacy that delivers to a senior who cannot drive. The pharmacy that calls to check on a patient after a hospital discharge. When that pharmacy closes, the safety net narrows.
What is changing for the better
I do not want to leave you with only the bad news. Several things have improved or are improving.
- Federal action on PBM reform has begun to address some of the worst practices that drove independent closures.
- Mississippi specifically has passed and continues to consider state level legislation to protect independent pharmacies from PBM abuses.
- Patient awareness is growing. Families are noticing the difference between chain and independent service and choosing accordingly.
- Independent pharmacies that have adapted, modernized, and diversified, including by adding their own product brands, are finding paths to sustainability that did not exist a decade ago.
What you can do
If you want independent pharmacies to remain part of the Mississippi healthcare landscape, here is what actually helps.
- Fill your prescriptions at an independent if there is one available to you. Reimbursement structures count every prescription. Volume matters, even at the individual level.
- If you have a relationship with your independent pharmacist, tell other families. Word of mouth in Mississippi communities is the single strongest factor in independent pharmacy growth.
- Buy your over the counter and wellness products from your local independent or from a pharmacist owned brand. The margins on prescriptions are squeezed. The retail side is what keeps the lights on.
- Support state level pharmacy reform legislation. Mississippi has been more active on this than most states, and there is more work to do.
- When you transfer a prescription to an independent, you are also reducing the load on the chain you are leaving, which improves the experience for the patients still there.
What Fairview is doing
Fairview has stayed open through some of the worst financial conditions independent pharmacies have faced. We are now expanding. A new Hattiesburg location opens in the summer of 2026. We are launching a national over the counter wellness line, Fairview Wellness+, which lets pharmacist quality care reach families across the country, and helps sustain the local independent model in Hattiesburg.
Forty eight years of community trust does not get rebuilt easily. Our intention is for Fairview to be here forty eight more, doing the work the Winbornes started in 1978 in a way that makes sense for 2026 and everything after. Serving Hattiesburg, the Pine Belt, Central Mississippi, and South Mississippi.
If you want to be part of it
If you are in Hattiesburg, Petal, Sumrall, Purvis, Oak Grove, Laurel, Ellisville, Collins, Columbia, Lumberton, or anywhere in Forrest, Lamar, Jones, Perry, or Covington County, transferring your prescription to Fairview takes about three minutes. We handle the paperwork on our end.
You will get the kind of pharmacy experience you may not have realized was still available in Mississippi. The pharmacist will know your name. The phone will be answered. The counter conversation will take the time it needs. And the standard the Winbornes set in 1978 will still be the standard the pharmacist behind the counter is held to.
This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for personalized medical advice. Before starting or changing any medication, including over the counter products and supplements, talk with your pharmacist or physician about your specific situation.