Fitzgerald Pharmacy Holds the Line as Business Gets Tough

Bill Kregel got an internship at Fitzgerald Pharmacy in 1972, fresh out of school, and hasn’t left since.

Now a co-owner, Kregel said he plans to retire there, serving as a pharmacist for the third generation of families who have grown to trust his advice.

"I don't think I would know how to live anywhere else at this point," he said.

But Kregel worries his profession as he knows it is a dying trade.  

As local pharmacies have gone out of business around the country, Fitzgerald's is holding the line, Kregel said, because of their long tradition of customer service, serving Whitefish Bay since 1954.

Kregel prides himself on taking time to talk to patients about the best medications for them, with an eye for saving them money.

“We are the first line of general practitioners,” Kregel said. “Every day, every hour someone is in here saying, ‘I got this problem. What do I do?’”

Kregel said their staff is often able to refer people to over-the-counter medications, thus averting unnecessary doctor visits or prescription medications.

These impromptu consultations are at no cost to the customer, and thus at no direct profit to the pharmacy—a factor that has made it difficult for local pharmacies to make ends meet.

“It’s a squeeze,” he said. “I don’t get paid a penny more for sitting down and spending time with them.”

However, it’s these interactions to which Kregel attributes Fitzgerald Pharmacy’s success.

“That’s why we’re an independent, not a chain,” Kregel said. “There’s time involved, but you’re doing a heck of a service to the patient. It’s getting them quality care for less money. Given the option, they will come back to us.”

“’Given the option’—that’s the key,” Kregel stressed.

These days many insurance companies require patients to order drugs from specific pharmacies across the country by mail order, for a lesser co-pay. Kregel said every year mail-order pharmacies cut into their local business more and more.

“Our market share is dropping and dropping,” Kregel said. “Patients hate it but they don’t have an option. Every weekend you have people saying their mail order didn’t show up, and they need that medication. You end up calling the doctor and you get paid 50 cents, but you do it because somebody has to care.”

Kregel worries about a day when local pharmacies are an antiquity. He wonders, who would be left to care?

“If that happens, the whole country will have problems. We have to have brick and mortar pharmacies available,” Kregel said. “But every year it erodes. You don’t know how far it will erode before it stabilizes.”

Mail-order prescriptions can save money and time, but they can also bypass FDA standards and supply substandard medication, as examined in this article in the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.

Kregel said local pharmacies are able to offer something you can't get online – a helping hand. Fitzgerald's recently expanded its collection of medical equipment like canes, wheelchairs and braces. Staff members help customers find the right fit, and offer home delivery and set-up.

“We're holding the line. The sky isn’t falling," Kregel said. “All we can hope is that tomorrow will be better."

Kregel looks back on his 39 years at Fitzgerald Pharmacy with a nostalgic fondness.

When he first joined the pharmacy, a soda fountain and buckets of penny candy attracted many residents to the place.

"Not a holiday goes by that someone doesn't come in who wants to talk about their memories here and see who still works here," he said.

The soda fountain is long gone, but the staff does their best to keep the penny candy tradition alive with dozens of buckets of candy in the storefront.

"We will go to Sam's Club and Cosco every week to make sure we have the penny candies," he said. "We don’t make any money, but it’s tradition."

On Kregel's desk in the basement of the store, there's a picture of a newborn baby, front and center.

"I just became a grandpa," Kregel said. "Everybody wants to see the pictures. It’s a family here; it’s not a job. Like a family, we all have our own opinions, but we all work for the common good."

As Kregel walked through the pharmacy, an employee paused her work to ask, "How's the baby?"

"My most memorable moments here are with people, talking with customers, seeing their kids grow up," he said. "It brings home the point of why we do what we do."