By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

As Coastal Drug Pharmacy in Ocean Pines celebrates its 10th anniversary, the owners reflected this week on a decade of pharmaceutical care and the business’s community-first services.

Coastal Drug has served the Ocean Pines and the surrounding communities for 10 years. The store was initially located near Atlantic General Hospital before it moved to the former Walgreens in Manklin Station, where it had existed for approximately five years. In 2023, owners Ray and Arti Patel had the opportunity to purchase its current location at 11005 Manklin Meadows Lane across from the South Gate Pond, where it sits today.

“It’s always a good business decision to own something rather than pay rent,” Ray Patel said of moving storefronts. “[The current location] has a better visibility of the four-way stop sign, and it has 17 parking spots.”

The pharmacy’s business model for the past 10 years has been to offer patients a localized “mom and pop” approach to prescription care. Coastal Drug builds strong connections with its customer base to differentiate itself from its competition, including the nearby Rite Aid, Walgreens, Walmart, AGH, and TidalHealth.

“We try to build a bond with each of our patients, and they love the fact that they get that concierge service,” Patel said. “We don’t look at them as a number. We try to know as much as we can. Our objective is to make sure they’re taking care of their health. We go in-depth with them if they have any questions about their medications.”

“It’s building that bond for long-term relationships and ensuring they are taking care of their health by providing that key service of medication that can be a little overwhelming for many people.”

Many of these connections are built by providing trustworthy and consumer-first services, which a lot of larger, more well-known pharmacies do not or cannot offer, including delivery.

According to Patel, Coastal Drug will deliver medications to Ocean Pines, West Ocean City, Ocean City, and Berlin patients struggling to leave their houses. While the service used to be free, the owner maintained that to keep up with costs like having a driver on staff, insurance, gas, and the vehicle, they started to charge $3 for the drop-off assistance.

The shop also has qualified nurses who will conduct home visits for vaccination admissions for homebound residents. The nurses are also licensed in Delaware. Last week, one of the healthcare workers headed all the way to Selbyville to administer a vaccine.

“We do it because we care,” Patel said. “It’s easier for [the patient]. It’s good business, but more important than business is doing the right thing and making sure patients get what they want. That has been the core formula for our pharmacy.”

Coastal Drug also provides compliance packaging to strengthen the “mom and pop” experience. This method involves organizing up to 15 or 20 different medications into an easy-to-understand assortment, like separating nighttime and daytime pills and offering customers bingo cards to track their prescriptions adequately.

Patel said the bingo slips allow consumers to “pop a bubble” to indicate that they had taken that medication that day. This is typically helpful for dementia patients who may struggle to remember if they have taken a particular pill. The card is a tool to avoid mistakenly taking medication too many times in one day.

“Those kinds of things happen more than people know, but providing compliance packaging takes that responsibility off [the patient’s] hands,” the pharmacy owner said. “The kids love it. If their mom or dad are by themselves in Ocean Pines, a lot of our customers’ kids are in different states; once they find out about the programming, it’s such a good feeling for them to know that the Coastal Drug team is taking care of their mom and dad.”

A hallmark of the Ocean Pines business is educating its customer base on healthcare — not just the contents of their prescriptions but also about insurance and medication options. Patel said that Coastal Drug is different from bigger pharmacies because its community shop is committed to researching the best prices.

“Customers can say, ‘Hey, this is what I’m paying with my insurance. Do you think I can get it at a better price if we don’t use our insurance since this is a generic prescription?’ The answer is yes nine times out of 10,” Patel said.

Having options is essential for patients.

“Right now is a perfect example where everybody has a high deductible,” the owner noted. “But if they’re never going to hit their deductible, [customers] can get that medication for a fraction of the cost out of pocket. That is the decision they don’t know about; we have to explain it to them, and once they understand the complexity of healthcare and how insurance plans are, they can make their own choices.”

Patel continued sometimes a high price on medications prevents people from taking them, even if they’re a necessity. The Coastal Drug team aims to alleviate this stressor through its commitment to personalized patient care and education.

With a decade under its belt, the pharmacy hopes to make business strides within the next five years. The shop aims to expand with an “Ashley Furniture Store” that houses walkers, hospital beds, and wheelchairs. Patel said that he and his wife have identified this service as a need in the community. The pair are researching this possibility but hope to get it off the ground in five years, “if not sooner.”

“That’s our next step on our journey of growing,” Patel said. “But we will not get into something we are not 100% sure of. If I’m going to get into it, we want to provide that perfect service, but it will take time, and once we are ready for it, it will be another add-on to the community that we can provide that nobody else can.”

Patel said he is thankful for the community’s support of Coastal Drug and hopes that by providing a personal experience, those who use Walmart or Rite Aid as their pharmacies will consider making a switch.

“[Our customers] treat us like family; they tell us stories of their families and vacations they go on,” Patel said. “We love building that bond and having those conversations with our patients. All those little things our customers bring to us make our day.”