New Jersey stripped Eli Mirlis of his license to operate nursing homes. Why was he able to buy 12 facilities in Massachusetts?
*Boston Globe
By The Editorial Board
November 9, 2026
A Spotlight investigation into RegalCare spurred changes, but also raises questions about why the state didn’t step in earlier.
In September, the Boston Globe Spotlight team released an investigation into Eli Mirlis, who has purchased 12 Massachusetts nursing homes over the last five years through his company RegalCare.
The investigation found that Mirlis said on his application to purchase the homes that he never had a professional credential revoked — even though New Jersey revoked his nursing home operator license in 2018 because he lied about completing continuing education requirements.
Massachusetts regulators let Mirlis buy the homes anyway.
That oversight had serious consequences for patients: The nursing homes Mirlis purchased dropped in federal quality rankings after he bought them, and the Globe documented residents’ and families’ serious complaints about care. Mirlis’s nursing homes in Connecticut also have poor quality of care.
Within weeks of the Spotlight story, the state Department of Public Health took initial steps to revoke all of RegalCare’s licenses and imposed enhanced monitoring on the homes in the meantime. The state’s Public Health Council approved new regulations giving state regulators more authority to scrutinize nursing home license applications and inspect homes more frequently.
While these actions are important, they beg the question of why it took a Spotlight investigation to prompt a strong response to the problems, which had been ongoing for years.
While the new regulations give state regulators greater authority, the public — particularly nursing home patients and families — need to be confident that regulators will actively use this authority to inspect homes and investigate prospective owners. The health department should make any leadership changes necessary to ensure it will provide aggressive enforcement in the future, even without public pressure.
Former attorney general Scott Harshbarger, who now advocates on issues around long-term care, said the issues identified by the Spotlight team should have been discoverable by regulators. It seems as if “the cop on the beat isn’t there,” Harshbarger told the editorial board. “There’s no sense of urgency about this.”
Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein told the editorial board in a statement that the department “takes seriously its responsibility to uphold these standards and protect the well-being of every resident,” which is why it imposed enhanced monitoring while seeking to revoke the licenses.
The state did previously identify problems at RegalCare. The Department of Public Health said it conducted 90 inspections at 12 RegalCare facilities over the past three years, resulting in four findings that residents were in “immediate jeopardy” and leading to enforcement actions including fines and restricting admissions. In 2025, the District of Massachusetts US Attorney’s office and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office accused Mirlis of insurance fraud for pushing intensive physical therapy on seniors to inflate insurance bills. Mirlis settled the lawsuit by paying a $1 million fine. State regulators also penalized RegalCare financially through fines and rate reductions because of its low federal quality ratings and failure to meet state staffing standards.
But the Department of Public Health continued letting Mirlis buy additional homes.
Goldstein told the Spotlight team he was hamstrung by state law that didn’t explicitly give regulators authority to consider an operators’ record in other states in approving or denying an application. A law expanding that authority was passed in September 2024. It took until October 2026, however, for the department to promulgate regulations implementing it. (The department defended the long timeline, telling the editorial board it began engaging stakeholders in November 2024, opened the process up for public comment in February 2026, and considered 123 comments.)
Also in October, the Department of Public Health indicated that regulators are taking a more careful look at acquisitions, blocking California-based chain Sweetwater Care’s proposed acquisition of 11 nursing homes now under receivership, citing records of poor care and safety violations at Sweetwater Care homes in other states.
That’s a start. The challenge will be continuing to scrutinize all proposed transactions. When an operator applies to purchase a nursing home, Massachusetts regulators should be examining their records of providing care in other states and their financial structures and relationships.
Other states do this. In New Jersey, for instance, someone seeking to buy a nursing home can be asked about their transaction under oath. New Jersey has denied licenses to potential nursing home operators on multiple occasions for reasons including improper financial activities and poor quality at other nursing homes run by the operator.
There is, of course, a trade-off to strict enforcement. Low-quality nursing homes could be forced to close if a new operator can’t be found, displacing residents. But there are potential solutions, like receivership, which allows another operator to manage a troubled home.
Equally important are state policies that ensure nursing homes are adequately reimbursed for care they provide and are financially incentivized to provide high-quality care. Appropriate reimbursement — with mechanisms to ensure money is spent on care not profit — lets homes maintain adequate staffing, retain qualified nurses, and care for complex patients.
As Tara Gregorio, president and CEO of Massachusetts Senior Care Association, which represents nursing homes, told the editorial board, increased regulatory oversight can’t be the only strategy to increase care quality. “Quality nursing facility care also depends on having a strong, well-trained, and adequately compensated workforce and access to resources that support residents’ increasingly complex care needs,” Gregorio said.
The residents at RegalCare homes deserved better. The state must ensure that all nursing home residents are cared for with dignity.