The “Roaring 20s” brings to mind jazz bands, flappers, bootleggers, gin joints, and raccoon coats. It was a decade of prosperity and dissipation for a nation emerging from the Great War and a devastating pandemic. The 1920s were years of profound social change and cultural conflict. For many Americans, the growth of cities and so-called “revolution in morals and manners” represented liberation from the nation’s Victorian past, but this cultural enlightenment clashed with a still deeply traditional heartland weary of outsiders and fearful of change.

Meanwhile, technology took its first great leap into everyday society. Radio broadcasting brought the outside world to communities long isolated and ossified by tradition; the decade ended with nearly half the nation’s households filled with sounds of modern civilization for the first time.

A century later, much has changed but more has stayed the same. The “war to end all wars” did no such thing, ideological extremism still pulls at the fabric of rational discourse, and we find ourselves emerging from another devastating pandemic. Yet for all the monumental issues shaping the modern zeitgeist, it’s another technology that promises/threatens to change the world in ways Marconi could not have dreamed.

“Roaring Reimbursement” examines Skilled Nursing through the lens of a nation, and a healthcare continuum, in transition. Governments must balance the Quality/Payment equation by solving for impossible variables. Investigations and oversight have ramped up to untenable levels as providers consider the possibilities of incorporating Artificial Intelligence into their management structure. Is the industry’s future fraught with economic malaise or new opportunities? In the 1920s, professionals took refuge from society at the Speakeasy. Today, the discussion starts at Skilled Nursing’s Speak-e-Z!