As a founding member of MAMA, its current president, and CEO of Affiliated Monitoring, Daniel Oppenheim has a unique vantage point within the PERS industry. Not only is he a leader of his own PERS company, he’s an ardent supporter of the industry and its members and sees its tremendous potential and influence in senior care, healthcare, and technology.
We recently sat down with Oppenheim to discuss MAMA’s role in the industry, the organization’s accomplishments over the past 15 years, and what he’s looking forward to most at next week’s conference.
What's special about this year's conference? What are you most excited about?
For our 16th annual conference, we currently have the largest registration in MAMA history, with still a week left to go. A huge number of new members and new faces joining. We are living in the golden age of our industry. It’s hard to pick one thing, but our “Going Global” panel is bringing PERS industry leaders from four different countries to the MAMA stage. Many trends and new ideas start abroad, so if you’re wondering where the PERS industry is going, this is a chance to see the future. Also, the AI Panel is stacked with real experts. Should be fascinating.
How does MAMA help members of the PERS industry succeed?
Our membership is comprised of the leading PERS companies, monitoring centers, and manufacturers in our space. Being able to network, discuss key issues that affect us all, and gain insights on best practices enable us all to become better leaders, better companies, and better support our aging customers. Once someone joins MAMA, they see the value. We have an over 95% retention rate for regular members.
Why have you committed 16 years of your time to this association? Why is it important to you?
There is no association focused on the needs of the senior PERS monitoring space. When I first got involved with MAMA, I believed there were common issues facing our industry that would benefit from our industry working together.
Since then, MAMA has had an amazing record of working for the industry: In the early days, pushing our manufacturers to develop cellular-connected PERS devices may have been one of our biggest wins.
We also joined the FTC in the fight against scam robocalling that plagued our industry’s reputation at the time. We also initiated a massive lobbying campaign focused on AT&T and Verizon’s 3G sunset dates that gained tremendous exposure and moved the needle for our industry.
We tackled the issue of our industry not having metrics on the size of our market by partnering with The Edmonds Group and launching the first (and still only) PERS industry market survey to get industry-specific data out to our members and their lenders and advisors.
We also did some great work on standards in the early years. MAMA’s support for the ASAP Program, which sends emergency dispatches to 911 centers electronically—it’s a current passion of mine. Also, our longstanding commitment to educating our members on government reimbursement trends. It’s a very impressive list, and I know I’m forgetting half of our initiatives.
It’s sometimes hard to believe that 16 years have passed, but it was time well spent to bring attention to an industry that means a lot to me. I’m excited by the new faces and voices that have joined MAMA, and it's great to see them taking on leadership roles within the organization. One day soon, I’ll be in the audience watching the next generation of lead MAMA.
Why do you think PERS Insider readers should join MAMA?
MAMA brings together the best of the best in this industry over the course of two days. You’ll gain invaluable insights, meet people, and learn things that can’t happen anywhere else. If you’re serious about your business, then you have to be at MAMA.
What's a memory that stands out to you from past MAMA conferences?
We have had some phenomenal meetings over the past 16 years and excellent keynote speakers. For me, hearing from Dr. Joe Kvedar, an early leader in connected health, opened my eyes to how PERS and remote patient monitoring can dramatically improve senior health outcomes and meaningfully reduce healthcare costs. To hear from someone on the clinical side how impactful our industry was and the huge future potential is exactly what makes MAMA special.
And opening each meeting with a joke from Ken Gross has always been a highlight. After all of these years, you would think the jokes would’ve run out by now, but somehow, he keeps coming back with more!
