Nursing home owner and operator Gregory Mirlis is facing mounting legal challenges and criticism over his management practices, which include allegations of care violations and aggressive financial strategies affecting the quality of services in multiple facilities across Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Mirlis, who started his career as a nursing home administrator in New Jersey before founding RegalCare in 2016, now controls several nursing homes in Massachusetts, including locations in Amesbury, Danvers, Saugus, Taunton, Wakefield, Whitinsville, and Sudbury. His rise in the industry followed a lengthy and public legal battle against Daniel Greer, a former rabbi who was convicted of sexual assault, with Mirlis awarded $20 million in civil damages.

Regulatory and court documents reveal a pattern of operational cuts at Mirlis’s facilities that have drawn scrutiny. A whistleblower lawsuit, joined by state and federal authorities, alleges that Mirlis and business partners orchestrated a scheme to overbill Medicare and Medicaid by pushing unnecessary and intensive physical therapy treatments on frail residents in 19 facilities across two states. Mirlis settled this federal case in September 2026, agreeing to pay a $1 million fine and acknowledging his involvement.

Employees and former staff at RegalCare facilities have described significant budget reductions, with a notable decrease in nursing hours and spending on direct patient care. For example, at the Taunton nursing home, operating expenses related to facility operations and dietary costs declined by nearly 20 percent between 2021 and 2025. Nursing hours for registered nurses dropped by more than half, while licensed practical nurse hours decreased by over a third during that period. Simultaneously, payments to companies affiliated with Mirlis, including management, real estate, and therapy entities, increased substantially, raising concerns from Massachusetts health officials about funds being diverted away from patient care.

Incidents cited in legal filings and staff accounts point to troubling care lapses. One case involved a 91-year-old resident in a Connecticut RegalCare facility who was subjected to intensive physical therapy despite severe health conditions and family requests for hospice care; she died four weeks after admission. Another involved a Taunton resident whose daughter reported substandard treatment, including delayed responses after a fall that resulted in serious injury and death.

Regulators’ oversight of Mirlis’s expanding portfolio has come under question. While some of his Massachusetts nursing homes held federal three-star ratings upon acquisition, several have since fallen to one star following inspections identifying “immediate jeopardy” conditions and other deficiencies. Despite this, state authorities approved multiple nursing home purchases by Mirlis without apparent in-depth vetting of his out-of-state records or business history. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health commissioner acknowledged legal limits previously hindered the agency’s ability to consider national records but noted recent legislative changes aim to address this.

Mirlis’s business operations are further complicated by opaque and intertwined ownership structures involving partnerships with other investors, such as Benjamin Landa and Jacob Sod, who have contested or distanced themselves from allegations of impropriety. His companies have been involved in lawsuits over contract terms and secret agreements. Additionally, questions have emerged about Mirlis’s claimed academic credentials and professional licenses, with regulatory records showing a permanent revocation of his administrator license in New Jersey due to findings of fraud and misrepresentation and lapsed licenses in New York and Connecticut.

Despite repeated spending cuts affecting frontline services, RegalCare has hosted well-funded staff recognition events, including lavish annual parties with open bars and gifts, underscoring tensions between financial priorities and care delivery raised by former employees.

Industry experts caution that such ownership patterns and related-party financial transactions—where nursing homes pay affiliated entities for services—can facilitate profit extraction at the expense of resident care. Similar cases have drawn enforcement actions elsewhere in the nursing home sector.

As Massachusetts continues to see a wave of out-of-state investors acquiring long-term care facilities, advocacy groups and legal experts urge more rigorous regulatory scrutiny to protect vulnerable residents from declining care quality linked to cost-cutting and complex financial arrangements.