BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A pharmacist who worked at Starke’s Winn-Dixie for 12 years has opened his own drugstore across the street from the grocer.
Sunil Paladugu and the North Florida Regional Chamber of Commerce co-hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Starke Family Pharmacy on July 9. The new business owner asked Starke City Commissioner Danny Nugent to handle the scissors during the ceremony.
Paladugu, a Jacksonville resident, said he grew fond of his Bradford County customers during his employment at Winn-Dixie. He said that after the grocery store’s owner, Southeaster Grocers, agreed to be acquired by Aldi, Winn-Dixie sold its prescription business to Walgreens.
“Most of the people here,” he said, “I’ve got a personal relationship. I’m driving from Jacksonville, but still, I like this place.”
Paladugu said he graduated from pharmacy school in India and has been in the profession for 17 years. Before working in Starke, he was a pharmacist in Winn-Dixie’s Argyle Forest store in Jacksonville.
The new business owner said health insurance companies are making it more difficult for new pharmacies to get reimbursed, and the application process from major insurers and benefit managers has been his most significant hurdle in opening his doors.
“I applied with the insurance companies in October, so it’s taken eight months to get approved,” he said.
At the ribbon-cutting, Paladugu said he was still waiting on approval from one insurer. However, Humana has approved his business. The pharmacist added that around 60% of his customers carried Humana health insurance when he worked at Winn-Dixie.
Starke Family Pharmacy is near Little Caesars, Healing Hands Massage and Wellness, and The Cutting Room.
