Independent Pharmacy
Run the independent pharmacy in a town of 9,000 against a chain drugstore, the supercenter's pharmacy counter and insurers pushing patients to mail order. Thin margins, loyal patients, and a care-home contract worth fighting for.
Your pharmacy is on the corner it has been on since 1952: a dispensary, a front store of cards and vitamins, and a pharmacist who knows every patient's name. The town has 9,000 people, the county 26,000 more, and most of them take something every day. The decisions are the ones squeezing every independent: how to compete when insurers set the price of a prescription and steer patients to mail order, how many pharmacists and technicians to staff for the queue, whether to court the long-term care homes and the clinic, and whether services — delivery, compounding, adherence packs, vaccinations — earn back what they cost. It teaches a business with a thin gross margin and very loyal customers: volume, staffing to the queue, and finding the services a chain will not bother with.
$5.00 a seat · 3 simulated years, decided quarterly · by SparkTower.