RANCHO MURIETA, CA (MPG) - For more than a year, I worked with MednRx and Same Day Health Care Pharmacy to bring California’s first telemedicine pharmacy kiosk to Rancho Murieta. I believed we finally had a solution to a problem our community has faced for decades.

Instead, after nearly two years of regulatory review, the California State Board of Pharmacy effectively denied not only Rancho Murieta’s kiosk but, in my opinion, the entire business model.

It has been decades since Rancho Murieta’s neighborhood pharmacy in the shopping center closed. That space is now occupied by Ace Hardware. Since then, residents have relied on mail-order delivery, Amazon, Kaiser, Costco and other pharmacies for their prescription needs. Some are satisfied with those options, while others still miss the convenience of having pharmacy services just across the street. Telemedicine has also become a standard part of health care.

The pharmacy industry itself is facing difficult times. Rite Aid is closing stores nationwide, while Walgreens and CVS continue to reduce the number of pharmacies they operate. New business models are needed: fewer large brick-and-mortar stores, lower overhead and greater use of technology.

MednRx was founded by Dr. Steven Gest and Vaibhav Shah to provide telemedicine pharmacy kiosks in communities known as “pharmacy deserts,” where residents have limited access to pharmacy services. After nearly a year of community support and discussions, the company agreed that Rancho Murieta would be the ideal location for its first California kiosk.

The concept was straightforward. A central brick-and-mortar pharmacy would support five automated kiosks located in surrounding communities. Patients could consult with a licensed pharmacist through secure video conferencing while receiving prescriptions from an Automatic Patient Dispensing System (APDS). It was designed as a 21st-century solution that reduced overhead while expanding pharmacy access in medically underserved communities.

Same Day Health Care Pharmacy opened in Rancho Cordova on Nov. 15, 2024, to serve as the hub for the kiosk system. Rancho Murieta was selected to receive the first kiosk in California, and optimism was high.

Over the past year, SDHC has become an active part of our community. Representatives briefed the Rancho Murieta Association, Kiwanis and other groups, sponsored the Crab Feed, staffed information tables outside Ace Hardware, offered flu shot clinics and explained how the kiosk would work. Many residents were enthusiastic about finally having pharmacy services return to Rancho Murieta.

As time passed, however, it became evident that the California State Board of Pharmacy was moving very slowly on the licensing process. Nearly two years passed before the board finally considered the application during its April 15, 2026, hearing. In my opinion, what occurred that day effectively rejected not just Rancho Murieta’s kiosk, but the entire business model.

Board President Dr. Seung Oh said he believed California law allows Automatic Patient Dispensing Systems only in physicians’ offices or medical facilities. During the discussion, he remarked that patients already had “many other avenues” for obtaining their medications and said the board did not have the authority to approve this type of device.

I was especially disappointed that neither Dr. Oh nor any other board member visited the multimillion-dollar demonstration kiosk that had been set up in Elk Grove before making their decision.

The final kiss of death, in my view, came when Dr. Oh said the law would need to be “changed or clarified” before this concept could move forward. That could mean waiting three to five years, or perhaps much longer.

The board later advised SDHC and MednRx that their application had been “withdrawn,” even though company officials maintain they never withdrew it. That proved to be the final straw for the company.

The ultimate irony is that the pharmacy boards in Oregon and Arizona have already approved the concept. According to MednRx, the approval process in those states took only two months, and the kiosk originally planned for Rancho Murieta is now pending final placement in Oregon.

Same Day Health Care Pharmacy has closed; employees have lost their jobs; there will be no telemedicine pharmacy kiosk in Rancho Murieta or elsewhere in California for the foreseeable future; and millions of dollars already invested in the California project have been lost.

I hope this summary helps to explain what happened. The issue is much more complicated than can be covered here, but the outcome speaks for itself.

I regret that I was unable to help bring this project to Rancho Murieta. It was a privilege to work with everyone involved, and I remain convinced that telemedicine pharmacy kiosks can improve access to pharmacy services for communities like ours.