How do you run 180 care communities and still notice the dead batteries in a resident's TV remote?

Gary Blake, co-founder and CEO of Creative Solutions in Healthcare, joins Dan Brody in Texas to talk about the details that define great care, and the culture and technology that keep a large operator close to them.

Gary started as an administrator in training in Weatherford, Texas in 1993. He opened his first building in Granbury with 77 residents in 181 beds, and today the company cares for about 12,000 patients.

In this conversation he explains how his Voices of Care program lets frontline department heads rewrite company policy, why his team has been using AI to code invoices to the general ledger for over a year, and how AI-assisted admissions helps the company give hospitals an answer in about three minutes while taking only the patients its buildings are equipped to serve.

He also covers the hiring questions that get past a rehearsed interview, why operators are custodians of patient records rather than owners of them, what makes Texas unique for operators, and the advice he gives anyone deciding what to do next.

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Care, Code, and Capital explores the intersection of healthcare, technology, and finance: the delivery of care, the technology powering it, and the financial structures sustaining it.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music, or read the full write-up at https://www.getmegadata.com/care-code-and-capital

JJ Rabinowich has spent his career at the intersection of policy, operations, and capital in long-term care, and he says the single biggest predictor of a hospital readmission isn't a resident's diagnosis. It's whether a family member's guilt shows up in the case file.

In this episode of Care, Code, and Capital, Dan Brody sits down with JJ Rabinowich, Founder and Executive Director of the Ambassadors Group, to discuss the state of long-term care advocacy, how AI is actually being used inside skilled nursing operations, the legal gray areas nobody has solved yet, and what the silver tsunami means for the future of the industry.

JJ's path into long-term care started in advocacy, running the West Coast office of a national organization before moving into state level lobbying in Chicago and eventually opening his own regulatory consulting practice. In January 2020, he helped found the Ambassadors Group to give skilled nursing operators a stronger, more unified voice in Washington, D.C., just months before COVID turned the organization into the industry's daily source of regulatory guidance.

In this conversation, Dan and JJ discuss:

• JJ Rabinowich's path from advocacy work to long-term care lobbying
• Founding the Ambassadors Group and its January 2020 launch
• Becoming the industry's information hub during COVID
• Why families are a bigger factor in hospital readmissions than most operators realize
• Using AI to prepare and stress test state survey plans of correction
• The legal gray areas around AI, attorney client privilege, and HIPAA
• Why evaluating new AI vendors has become a full time job for operators
• The silver tsunami and the case for skilled nursing as a care model
• Why states like Indiana are rethinking managed Medicaid
• Advice for young operators on partnerships and capital

JJ's take on what matters most in this industry:

"Provide quality care. That's eighty percent of the battle."

This episode is for skilled nursing operators, long-term care lobbyists and advocates, healthcare investors, and anyone trying to make sense of how AI regulation is catching up to healthcare.

Ben Cohen has grown August Healthcare from three skilled nursing facilities to nearly ten, and he says the difference between a turnaround and a shutdown always comes down to people.

In this episode of Care, Code, and Capital, Dan Brody sits down with Ben Cohen, Founder of August Healthcare, to discuss scaling a skilled nursing organization, turning around distressed facilities, using AI to speed up deal underwriting, and building a culture that keeps caregivers from burning out.

Ben got his start in healthcare in 2009 in the durable medical equipment industry, later building and selling his own respiratory company. In 2021, right as the post-COVID staffing crisis was setting in, he started August Healthcare with three facilities in Virginia. The company has since grown to nine facilities, with a tenth in the process of being certified.

In this conversation, Dan and Ben discuss:

• How August Healthcare grew from three facilities to nearly ten in a tight deal market
• Why turning around a distressed facility starts with rebuilding the team, not the building
• How AI has cut skilled nursing deal underwriting from days down to hours
• How "distinguished care" and traditions like the annual August Summit build culture across facilities
• Why nursing school enrollment is dropping as the aging population keeps growing
• Why technology can support caregiving, but should never replace it
• How renovating facilities into more residential, welcoming spaces improves care and recruiting

Ben's take on what makes any of it work:

"Company culture is really everything."

This episode is for skilled nursing operators, healthcare investors, long-term care executives, and anyone building or scaling a care organization through culture and technology.