Never let it be said that Dan Reingold is averse to a little disruption.

Ever since I met the RiverSpring Living executive nearly 25 years ago, I’ve known him to be a mover and shaker. Not afraid to ruffle feathers, and always pushing for change. That’s one of the reasons he was such a hit as a keynoter at the recent LeadingAge New York Financial Professionals Conference.

It was there that he struck again on one of his favorite themes, albeit a reluctant one: Doing away with the current US nursing home model.

Consumers don’t like it, operators don’t like it and the continually fault-finding government doesn’t like it, he points out. To him, the last largely means the state of New York, which funds its Medicaid patients at about $170,000 each per year, he explained.

Barring newer innovations like the small-building concept, we’ve been merely tweaking virtually the same nursing home model since Medicare and Medicaid came into being 60 years ago, he reminds with disbelief.

It’s time for governments to “really sit down and say, ‘Are we spending taxpayer money properly?’” he told me. Start things anew with private rooms and full bathrooms and perform “gut-renovating” of existing properties because zoning and NIMBY challenges are so hard to overcome if one dares think about building new, he says.

“We baby boomers blew up every system as we were growing up,” he said with no small sense of pride. “From the suburban elementary school to child-rearing with Dr. Spock, and then when we got to college, we blew up college campuses. Then, it’s kind of like we all decided we were going to die without getting old so we didn’t bother blowing up the long-term care system.”

‘Great possibilities’

So it’s time to stop doing the same thing and expecting better results, he said, indirectly invoking the spirit of Albert Einstein or Rita Mae Brown or one of many other possible originators.

And while the amount may not be $170,000 per resident everywhere, he’s confident the same principle of doing more with less applies elsewhere across the nation.

Among other things, he sees an opportunity in renovating some of the many small “suite” hotels he believes are ripe for economical purchases around the country. They come complete with front desks, common areas, kitchen areas … imagination can fill in much of the rest.

And while he’s envisioning a new future, Reingold isn’t about to indulge the anxiety-ridden provider who worries that they are “just” a nonprofit or too small to bring about change.

“There’s an enormous amount of cash sitting on the sidelines right now, dying to get into the senior care field, and just looking for opportunities. With the right kind of financial advisor, there are great possibilities,” he said. 

It just takes vision, and the will to change. Not-so-distant history once again is his lesson book.

“In 1969 and 1970, and after the Vietnam War, when all the campuses were burning, college campuses reinvented themselves, and when suburbia kicked off after World War II, it reinvented itself. That’s the point I’m making. It’s time to readjust, long past time. We should have been doing this 15 years ago.”

James M. Berklan is McKnight’s Long-Term Care News’ Executive Editor and a Best Commentary award winner in the 2024 Neal Awards, which are given annually for the nation’s best specialized business journalism.

Opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News columns are not necessarily those of McKnight’s.