Giant Eagle to take over prescriptions from 78 Rite Aid stores

Giant Eagle will take over pharmacy prescriptions from 78 Rite Aid stores that are closing across Pennsylvania and Ohio, the supermarket chain announced Thursday.

Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month.

According to Giant Eagle, transferred prescriptions will go to locations most convenient for affected customers.

The transfer will happen in waves next month and is subject to regulatory approval, Giant Eagle said.

Mike Chappell, Giant Eagle’s senior vice president of pharmacy, said the transition will be seamless for customers.

Prescriptions will automatically be securely transferred from Rite Aid locations to Giant Eagle.

There will be no need for customers to call and check — or to have their doctors reissue the prescriptions, Chappell said.

“The data transfers happen overnight,” he said. “Rite Aid will continue to that last day of business. That next day, all of the information shows up (for Giant Eagle).”

He noted, too, that all Giant Eagle pharmacy locations will have access to the prescriptions in the event a customer would prefer a different location.

In addition to absorbing the Rite Aid prescriptions, Giant Eagle also will immediately assume operations of two existing Rite Aid pharmacies without interruption.

“They will close on one day, and the next day they will be Giant Eagle,” Chappell said.

Giant Eagle did not identify the two locations but said they will be similar to four stand-alone Giant Eagle pharmacies the company operates, including in Edinboro and Greenville, Chappell said.

Among the first 30 Rite Aid stores whose prescriptions will be taken over by Giant Eagle are those in: Bridgeville, Charleroi, Forest Hills, Irwin, McKees Rocks, Monongahela, Monroeville, North Huntingdon, Oakmont, Pittsburgh (Shadyside), Rostraver, West Mifflin and Whitehall.

Giant Eagle said it is proactively reaching out to affected Rite Aid customers.

Rite Aid is working to sell its 1,200 stores across the country. There are more than 300 Rite Aid locations in Pennsylvania.

Stores that aren’t sold will close, and it is estimated that 31,000 workers will lose their jobs.

However, Chappell said, Giant Eagle has been in discussions with Rite Aid’s human resources staff to hire hundreds of employees.

Earlier this month, Rite Aid received court approval to sell most of its pharmacy assets from more than 1,000 store locations to a number of companies, including CVS, Walgreens, Albertsons, Kroger and Giant Eagle.

CVS also will purchase several stores in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.