When Mark Parkinson talks, his voice speaks for thousands. As president and CEO of the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, he represents more than 14,000 nursing homes and assisted living communities across the country.
“When they were needed most, our long-term care heroes stepped up for our nation’s seniors. Now, it’s time for those in positions of power to do the same,” he wrote in a notable commentary he authored for The Hill, a leading political newspaper.
Although much of his time is spent lobbying on senior living and care operators’ behalf in the halls of Washington, DC, and occasionally as an industry spokesman on national news outlets and elsewhere, he also knows what it’s like to run a long-term care community at the grassroots level. In 1996, while still working in their private law practice, he and his wife, Stacy, founded the first of 10 eldercare communities in Kansas and Missouri.
“We thought that we would be able to continue to do all of those things and that we would build this one — just one — assisted living facility, and it would kind of be off to the side,” he told attendees of AHCA/NCAL’s 2016 annual meeting, adding that as they imagined, “We’d check on it every once in a while to make sure it was doing OK. It would be a hobby.”
That assumption was a mistake, of course, Parkinson told the crowd. “I think back and wonder, ‘How could we have been so naïve as to think that an assisted living facility would run itself?’ ” he said.
A Republican state legislator, he switched parties in 2006 to become Kathleen Sebelius’ running mate for governor, winning the position of lieutenant governor of Kansas. In 2009, he became governor after Sebelius became secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration.
He declined to run for reelection, and after he left office in January 2011 took the helm at AHCA / NCAL.
Parkinson was selected as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare in 2015, 2020 and 2021, and was named a Top CEO in the Washington Post’s 2019 Top Workplace survey in the small-employer category. He was named a Top Association CEO by CEO Update in 2013 and has appeared on The Hill’s list of top lobbyists every year since 2013.
The McKnight’s Pinnacle Awards program is jointly administered by McKnight’s Home Care, McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. Honorees were recognized March 7 at a dinner and awards ceremony in Chicago. The program’s Platinum sponsor was MatrixCare. Omnicare was a Silver sponsor, and additional sponsors included Pinnacle Quality Insight, HealthDirect and Sentrics.
Editor’s note: McKnight’s Home Care, McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and McKnight’s Senior Living are profiling the McKnight’s 2023 Pinnacle Awards honorees daily in April and May. For additional McKnight’s Pinnacle Awards content, visit this page.
