Kristen Ingold started working for Rite Aid in May 2024, first as a cashier and then as a pharmacy technician.
Her time with the nationwide pharmacy chain came to an end this summer when its Berlin location closed, along with more than a dozen Rite Aid stores in Maryland. The pharmacies closed after Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2025.
Last week, Rite Aid officially announced all of its U.S. stores, including those in Maryland, are now closed. “All Rite Aid stores have now closed. We thank our loyal customers for their many years of support,” reads a statement on the company’s website.
Rite Aid locations across Maryland, including several in and around Baltimore, closed this summer, according to a list on Rite Aid’s website. The Berlin location where Ingold worked closed in August, one of the last in the state to shutter.
Ingold still works as a pharmacy technician in the same former Rite Aid building in Berlin, but under new ownership. Patient profiles and staff were retained by its new owners, Med One Pharmacy, Ingold said. The transition in ownership alone means that store’s customers are able to go to the same location to fill prescriptions.
For most other former Rite Aid locations in Maryland, prescriptions have been transferred to nearby CVS, Walgreens, Harris Teeter or other pharmacies.
Pharmacy transfers can be found by searching for a ZIP code in Rite Aid’s transfer list, and customers are able to request their prescription and immunization history by completing an online form.
Rite Aid’s May 2025 bankruptcy filing was its second after years of rising debt and settlements from opioid-related lawsuits led to the company’s first bankruptcy filing in October 2023, reported the Associated Press.
Earlier this year, Rite Aid closed its distribution center in Aberdeen and laid off 363 employees. The company, which had 900 employees in June 2024, was one of Harford County’s biggest private employers.
Rite Aid’s closings are not the only ones shrinking the number of pharmacies for Marylanders. Both CVS and Walgreens have shuttered several of their stores this year.
The closings are reportedly part of a wider effort to consolidate business to more profitable stores while the industry struggles with changing consumer habits, rising costs and shrinking insurance reimbursements for prescriptions.
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