The Village of Callaway has had a pharmacy for many, many years - just one of the many healthcare opportunities the small community feels blessed to offer.

Long-time pharmacist Robert Edgington operated Right Drug in downtown Callaway for many years. For the past 12 years, Seven Valleys Health Mart has operated in Callaway under the ownership of Marge Trythall. She also owns Varney Health Mart Pharmacy in Broken Bow.

“We saw an opportunity, and feel like we want to be the medical home of the community,” explained Callaway District Hospital CEO Brett Eggleston. “We go to a lot of conferences where everybody talks about being the medical home, and that is really the model that we are trying to develop.”

What that means, Eggleston said, is the hospital wants to be involved in as many objects of care within the community as possible. With having a clinic and a hospital within the community, it became clear that without a local pharmacy patients would have to go elsewhere to fill their prescriptions. “And we feel pretty passionately that if they go to another community to fill their prescriptions, they are going to see a doctor there as well,” said Eggleston. “So for us, it’s about maintaining services within the community and being the hub of healthcare; and the pharmacy is a pretty important link in the healthcare continuum.”

Eggleston said there has always been a pharmacy in Callaway, and the pharmacy has always had a close working relationship with the hospital and clinic. Therefore, it seemed like the next logical step was to maintain pharmacy services here - which led to the decision for Callaway District Hospital to purchase the pharmacy from Trythall.

The building that has housed the pharmacy for the past 12 years was built as a temporary clinic during the renovation of the hospital and clinic. The hospital has always owned the structure, which was being leased to Trythall. Once the hospital renovation project was completed, the clinic and lab were relocated from the temporary building back to their permanent facility.

“It was assumed at the time that McMeen Physical Therapy, as it was then, was going to lease that building, but they decided to go another direction and built their building. That left this building open. In the meantime, Robert Edgington died of cancer, so there was a period of time when there was no pharmacy,” explained Eggleston. “So Marvin Neth recruited Marge to start a pharmacy here, and the hospital signed a lease agreement for that.”

The hospital now has the ownership interest in the pharmacy, renamed South Loup Community Pharmacy. Drew Smith has been hired as the full-time pharmacist and Brooke Dickman was hired as the pharmacy tech. Eggleston said an additional tech, Crystal Malcom, will be starting at the pharmacy within the next couple of weeks.

The hospital officially took over the pharmacy on Oct. 4, 2022. Since that time they have been working on the licensing and permit process, and contracting with insurance companies. The first official day of business as South Loup Community Pharmacy was Dec. 23.

Eggleston did say that once all of the paperwork is filed and licenses in place, they would eventually like to open a remote pharmacy in Arnold as well.

“The issue with having a remote pharmacy right now, is you actually have to own the pharmacy that is going to be a remote of you,” explained hospital CFO Caleb Poore. “So we would have to partner with an outside organization in order to operate a remote pharmacy, but you can’t do that because they don’t own our pharmacy. So we have been trying to work with Sen. Brewer’s office to get that legislation changed.”

As for a satellite clinic in Arnold, Eggleston said the hospital is waiting on word concerning a large grant that was applied for that would fund a large portion of that project. The next grant cycle will end in March.

South Loup Community Pharmacy is not new to Smith. A Sargent native, Smith earned his pharmacy degree at UNMC in Omaha and has been a pharmacist for seven and a half years. He has been working that entire time for Trythall.

“When I first graduated I came to this pharmacy for probably about five years,” Smith said of the Callaway location. He then transitioned full-time to the Broken Bow pharmacy, and said he is happy to be back in Callaway.

“This is a great community, and I am glad to be here. Callaway has a lot going on for no bigger than it is,” said Smith.

Eggleston said the pharmacy is working on getting licensed to be able to sell items such as diabetic test strips, and are also working on their Medicare Part B licensure. He said there are a lot of rules pertaining to pharmacies and the services that can be provided under certain licenses, and their goal is to fill as many of the gaps in healthcare as they possibly can.

“We can sell diabetic test strips now at cash price, but in order to actually bill them to insurance we have to be a DME (Durable Medical Equipment) pharmacy, so we are trying to get that licensing because that will save our patients a ton of money,” Eggleston added.

As Seven Valleys Health Mart Pharmacy, DME licensing was not in place. Nor were immunizations offered at the pharmacy. “That is one of the issues that we are trying to work through,” Eggleston said.

Poore added that there are some exciting modifications to the building itself as well. “We have been doing a little remodeling inside, like new paint and new flooring,” he shared. “We have some signage ordered, and when we get that it will give the building a facelift as well.”

South Loup Community Pharmacy is open Monday Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. They are exploring options that would allow them to be open for a few hours on Saturday to accommodate their working patients.

The pharmacy does currently offer prescription deliveries in Arnold on Mondays and Wednesdays, between 5 - 6 p.m. The pharmacy will also happily fill medication boxes for any patients, and there is no additional charge for that service.

“We also have a prescription renewal app available for patients, and that app is called ‘Pocket Rx’. It’s really handy as patients are able to submit a refill request whether the pharmacy is open or not,” said Poore. “Anyone interested in learning more about how to download this app should call the pharmacy.“