NIC Chats Podcast on the Road with Brendan Healy and Scott Tittle

Beth Mace: (00:10)
Hello. Welcome to the NIC Chats podcast. My name is Beth Mace and I am the chief economist and the director of research and analytics here at NIC. I'm so happy that you can join us today for this live broadcast here in Houston. The focus of the NIC Chats podcast is talking to interesting people that I hope that you're gonna find really fun to listen to. I'm hoping that you'll find some humor, some insights, some inspiration, and hopefully an aha moment. So you're gonna hear something that they say that's pithy or insightful, and you're gonna go oh, of course. So lemme tell you a little bit about the structure of today's event. First I'm gonna tell you for each person on my left three statements about them, two of those will be true, and one won't. During the course of the podcast, we'll reveal, which are true and which are false. That's gonna be a little fun. And then we're also are three standard questions that we'll ask. One will be the largest challenge facing our industry. Another will be how to grow talent in our industry. We've been hearing a lot about labor shortages. So how do we grow talent in the industry? And then one innovative way to strengthen our industry? So I'm thrilled to say that I have two gentlemen here from VIUM Capital and on my direct left is Brendan Healy and Brendan is a senior managing director at VIUM, and then to his left Scott Tittle, he's a managing director and head of the government relationships at external affairs at VIUM. So as we start, and as I say on with the show. So first Brendan, tell us a little bit about VIUM Capital.

Brendan Healy: (01:41)
Yeah, so VIUM Capital was long launched in the middle of 2020 by six individual partners that worked together for about a dozen years at Lancaster Pollard previously. The goal of company was really to have a relatively flat organization that was nimble and responsive to client needs and changes in the industry and we wanted to have a robust balance sheet that we could utilize to kind of attack opportunities that we, the market going forward.

Beth Mace: (02:05)
Great. And Scott, you're recently new.

Scott Tittle: (02:08)
That's right.

Beth Mace: (02:08)
You have a new position.

Scott Tittle: (02:11)
That's right.

Beth Mace: (02:11)
Head of government affairs. So tell us a little bit about that and how that happened.

Scott Tittle: (02:14)
Yeah, sure. So I'm just six weeks on the job and really excited to join the new team at VIUM. Actually known some of Brenda's partners for a couple years. We're going about 10 years ago when they were all Lancaster Pollard I was the president and CEO of the Indiana Healthcare Association. And they were sponsored the association. So I got to know the way back then always felt very highly to them. And for a while really wondered if there was an opportunity to work together in the future. And when they launched VIUM, I knew what a great opportunity to be, to join them and help grow the company. So

Beth Mace: (02:42)
Great. And so far so good?

Scott Tittle: (02:44)
So far, so good. Yeah.

Beth Mace: (02:45)
Great. So tell us a little bit, starting with you, Brendan, about your personal story. About how did you get to this spot? And, you know, there might be some young people listening in on this podcast today, any lessons you wanna share with them, or things that you can tell them that might give a step ahead?

Brendan Healy: (02:59)
Sure. I mean, how I got in the spot. I went to university of Maryland studied finance, and then I spent a little time in real estate development. Went to law school at Ohio State. And during that time period, I met a couple individuals that were working at Lancaster Pollard. I figured I could tie my real estate background, my finance background and my legal background and it was a good kind of launching point for me. And ultimately once I got into the sector and the career path I was on, just kind of kept going and really enjoyed it. In terms of lessons. I think the three biggest things I've learned so far. One, to be successful in this space, you have to continue to be a sponge to absorb and gain new knowledge and information and evolve who you are. Can't get complacent or you'll get passed. Number two, trust is very difficult to build and easy to lose. So it's really critical to focus on that with your client relationships. As well as your colleagues in the space. Then lastly as someone is starting a career, find a mentor that you trust that wants to see you grow and is not afraid to see your growth and will push you to be better. And I've had that in several individuals, including Cass, Matt and Steve Kennedy or two of my partners.

Beth Mace: (04:09)
So that's interesting. If you listen to the earlier podcast today, that was one of the pieces of advice too. The younger people was to find a mentor and I gave a shout out actually to... You had to find a mentor, but you need people who will be mentors then, right?

Brendan Healy: (04:22)
Yeah.

Beth Mace: (04:23)
So that's sort of our call to people who have been more into the industry for a while to reach out and to help someone and bring 'em along, cuz god knows we need more people interested in the sector and you know, a passion, right? And there's a real passion in this industry as well.

Brendan Healy: (04:38)
absolutely.

Beth Mace: (04:38)
It's really nice to be in an industry where what you do at the end of the day has some meaning. Right?

Brendan Healy: (04:44)
Yeah.

Beth Mace: (04:45)
How about you, Scott?

Scott Tittle: (04:46)
Yeah. So I'm a lawyer lobbyist from Indianapolis. I've kind of been in around the healthcare space for about 20 years. The last 15 years kind of focused on long term care. I've worked inside government, I've worked in a advocacy role, trade associations. I've been in private a law practice and then now playing this role with this new company.

Beth Mace: (05:04)
Underachiever, uh?

Beth Mace: (05:05)
I share your passion with the sector. I mean, I think that's one of the things that I've just really loved about working around long term care is the real mission driven focus of the business model itself.

Beth Mace: (05:14)
Right.

Scott Tittle: (05:15)
And I think if I had to pass on to advice, I agree with Brendan certainly too. Relationships and trust certainly matter for sure. I had a mentor that gave me his model, what you called your three truths. And you think about a time in your life where you were the happiest. Whether it was a volunteer opportunity or a job opportunity or a project. And think about what those three top components were that made it so rewarding, fulfilling, and then take those and place on any type of job opportunity as you're looking at options and more likely than not, if you meet those three truths then the job, which you will likely be very fulfilling for you. For me, it was always to have a great mentor. That's a great thing for today for sure. The second is I always wanna feel like I was growing, there was a ton of room and opportunity in the future. I've been a job before where I can remember, in fact, I was a regulatory deal lawyer and I was the state's expert in this one type of insurance filing. And I thought, oh my gosh, if this filing ever goes away, I will, I have no path in my career. Right? And I do always wanna have an opportunity for growth and certainly I found that at VIUM. And then lastly I was gonna make sure I'm serving others serving the good of their lives, serving the good of their careers and the good of their mission. And I think that's truly what I found in VIUM and in this space.

Beth Mace: (06:25)
Yeah. For me, certainly the idea of being engaged in what you do every day. I could promise you, I'm never bored in my job. So I was born to do this. There was more interesting things and you know, I get that privileged position of actually listening to a lot of people about what's going on in the industry. And it's never dull and it's really exciting and it's just really fun to see it all. So that's great. So you may have already answered this, but maybe we'll just touch on it one more time. In terms of why senior housing, you could have gone into multifamily. You could have stayed in, sort of, the role that you were doing. So why did you wanna get into the investment position and why senior housing of all the different opportunities that you could do for investment?

Brendan Healy: (07:05)
Yeah. I, I would say once again, I kind of fell into it, but once I got into it the two things that really excite me and the reason I'm still here today 12, 13 years into the career in seniors, housing, healthcare. One, the people, I think we really saw that over the last 18 months. The people in this space are innovative, incredibly hard working and passionate about what they do and about their employees and their facilities and their residents and the commitment we've seen over the last 18 months made me wanna just continue to be part of this. And number two when you look at... we've talked about it a lot. When we look at the demo over the next five to 20 years, we know that we're way behind in terms of having the number of facilities and offerings to the population compared to what we're gonna need with the baby boomers. It's a very exciting time to be in capital in this space.

Beth Mace: (07:54)
Absolutely. I wanna divert for a second. So we had talked about these two truths and the lies of gonna start with you. So these are the possibilities we're gonna find out about. That you are a scratch golfer, that you are have dual citizenship or that you have triplet boys and an infant boy at home. So I guess we should focus on that one first. Is that true or false?

Brendan Healy: (08:16)
That one is true.

Beth Mace: (08:17)
Oh my God. Where are your lines under your eyes?

Brendan Healy: (08:20)
Yeah, they're there you know. I have three, six year old boys and then had a, a surprise exciting birth during the pandemic. Boy number four is five months old. And it's great. My wife's a Saint.

Beth Mace: (08:34)
I would say so.

Beth Mace: (08:35)
Yeah. She's unbelievable. And keeps me in check more than the boys in check, but...

Beth Mace: (08:40)
I would bet. Wow. That's, that's fabulous. What are their names?

Brendan Healy: (08:41)
The triplets are August Dean and Smith. And the fourth one is named Welles and he's actually named after Welles Crowther. You may have heard the story, but he was a, a hero on 9-11. That was in the two towers.

Beth Mace: (08:54)
Yes. Wow. Wow.

Brendan Healy: (08:55)
So I wanna name 'em after that.

Beth Mace: (08:57)
Wow. Okay, great. All right. And Scott, let's do that with you for a moment. So two of these are true and one is false. So you are a licensed auctioner, you own a mobile bunny petting zoo birthday party business, or you once hit a kangaroo. Well, so this is gonna be tough to tell you once hit a kangaroo in your car. So tell us one of those that's true.

Scott Tittle: (09:23)
Well actually the kangaroo one is probably... The kangaroo one and the bunny petting zoo, but they're both true, but the one that seems less likely true is that we have a mobile bunny petting zoo, birthday party business. During COVID, we got one rabbit and now we have nine. I joke...

Beth Mace: (09:39)
They do multiply I hear.

Scott Tittle: (09:40)
Well, we had 'em fixed. So I joked they're all by acquisition, none by merger at this point, but the kids could thought of a great idea to start hosting birthday parties and taking the bunnies to the birthday parties. So we bring 'em and talk about the different breeds, talk about the personalities, let 'em pet the bunnies. So we do about one a month and it's a really fun little business model for our kids to learn about how price services.

Beth Mace: (09:58)
How old are your kids?

Scott Tittle: (09:59)
They're sixth grade and third grade.

Beth Mace: (10:01)
Oh, great idea.

Scott Tittle: (10:02)
So I follow up with customers, how to market on Instagram, how to price your services. How to write thank you notes.

Beth Mace: (10:08)
They could get and Eagle Scout, already

Scott Tittle: (10:09)
Yeah. It's a fun little business model for us. I joke it's my retirement plan. So, we've got private equity coming at us left and right on it, so yeah.

Beth Mace: (10:17)
Wow. What's the name of it?

Scott Tittle: (10:18)
Tittle Hop after...

Beth Mace: (10:19)
Oh, Tittle Hop!

Scott Tittle: (10:20)
Tittle hop. Yeah. Tittle hop. If you look at Instagram, Tittle Hop.

Beth Mace: (10:24)
So let's shift over to the industry for a second. In terms of your view on seniors housing. So, Scott starting with you how's the pandemic really reshaped our industry?

Scott Tittle: (10:33)
Yeah. Well, there's certainly be a lot of lessons learned after last 18 to 20 months. I think a couple things on the advocacy side that came through COVID, I think, one is the reimbursement model. Medicaid certainly is chronically underfunded. And I think if anything, what policy leaders should understand is that operators need more help on the reimbursement side in order to make sure that they're providing high quality care. We obviously learned a lot about supply chain. We learned a lot about the important role of PPE, and certainly a lot of lessons about staffing during a pandemic. So, I guess maybe another way to look at the question is I'm not sure what hasn't changed. Right? We're gonna learn a lot of lessons coming out to COVID

Beth Mace: (11:15)
That's a good point. There's not much that hasn't changed in our industry. Right? And just a shout out to the industry. It's amazing what the industry has done. They're never able to shut down, right? Worked around the clock. Talk about agile. To all the different challenges that came around. It's just unbelievable. And what do you think about that?

Brendan Healy: (11:33)
Yeah. I agree with Scott. I mean, it's still kind of a lot out there to determine where go from here, but I think a lot will be reshaped coming out of this. People are gonna look at their physical plans, look at how they're building facilities, going forward, look at their operating model, staffing models. Reimbursement's critical. I agree with Scott. There's a lot of change that needs to happen there to support our communities, especially on the skilled nursing side and then we need more support in the media for this space. You know, I think we saw just kind of how this industry was attacked during the pandemic and it wasn't fair. So I hope that changes over time as well.

Beth Mace: (12:08)
So we did do a study on that. Working with the NORC of the university of Chicago that tried to look at the difference in impact of COVID by whether it was skilled nursing assisted living, independent living, or memory care. We actually saw that the mortality rates, if you're in independent living, were comparable to those if you were in the general population. And then we also found that the higher acuity the setting the more challenging it was to take care of people, especially for memory care. Because people didn't really understand what it was that they needed to do to stay safe in that environment. So Scott, in earlier conversations between us, we had discussed ways to engage and to recruit and retain staff. What are some thoughts you might have on that topic?

Scott Tittle: (12:51)
I mean the labor shortage is certainly... There's no silver bullet answer. Right but there are a couple things that maybe we could look at going forward. Certainly comprehensive immigration reform is much needed but as we've heard a lot of this conference from some of the, leaders at the national trade associations, it seems unlikely that the political lineup is there to do some kind of meaningful, comprehensive immigration reform. So there are some things that can be done. Kind of tweaking around the edges a little bit, maybe some faster pathways for approval of visas for certain workforce, odd roles and opportunities. I know there's some really interesting conversations right now about trying to meet people at an earlier point in their career decision making process; high schools, technical colleges alike to really sell the sector. Which is a very fulfilling, rewarding career path. And so I think kind of working on some of those early adoption decision making times for nurses and healthcare professionals to come into the sector is really critical. But again, if we could get some kind of comprehensive immigration program done, then we might be able to help with the long term needs of the sector. But again, it seems less likely that's actually gonna happen.

Beth Mace: (13:58)
Okay. What about going forward? Where do you think we're heading in the next year in our industry?

Brendan Healy: (14:03)
Yeah, I mean, I think in the next year we're gonna continue to see kind of a little bit of difficulty, but there's light at the end of the tunnel. We're starting to see census increase and kind of across all levels of acuity will continue to improve. It's not quite there yet, but I think it's starting to improve. The biggest question I think everyone has, is gonna be staffing and how to resolve that issue. A lot of clients right now have wings shut down, because they'd rather do that than have too much agency staffing. They look at the trade off from the quality they're getting as well as the cost that comes with agency staffing. And a lot of them, are making that decision. And then just to add on that, I think many clients are trying to figure out how do we get rid of the amount of agency costs we have right now and start to recruit and retain employees long term.

Beth Mace: (14:46)
Very high. Temp agency work is really high and it also has some challenges I believe in terms of if you bring in temporary help, they may not understand sort of the culture of the property itself. And that's been a challenge.

Brendan Healy: (14:58)
Yeah. And I think the M and A activity will continue to be robust. I mean, we've seen a lot of it here in the last year and I think for the next 12 months, there will be a lot of transactions in the marketplace.

Beth Mace: (15:08)
Scott, same question to you. Any ideas in terms of labor or in terms of where we're headed in the next year?

Scott Tittle: (15:16)
Yeah. I agree with Brendan. And certainly what we'd like to see is census recover a little bit faster than probably is trending. But about counts it seems like maybe early next summer, maybe late next year, where census may recover to a point of where it may be somewhat sustainable but really come out of COVID I think there'll be some opportunities for AL and skilled operators to think about how to take more control over the payment itself. Whether it's through creating an ISIP or DSIP or CSIP or looking at provider networks. So I'm really excited about seeing that collaboration in the future, where operators take, again, more control over the payment and take more ownership over improving outcomes at more efficient costs.

Beth Mace: (15:49)
All right. That sounds, that sounds great. So some of my standard questions. Let's go to those for a moment. In terms of... This is gonna sound repetitive now with large challenge in our industry..

Brendan Healy: (16:01)
It's, it's definitely the recruitment, retention and cost of labor right now. I think everyone's saying, and it's a fact. And we're not seeing it in this industry either. Airlines, most people flying here, a lot of people had delays flights canceled for the same reason.

Beth Mace: (16:13)
Yeah. In fact, I gave a presentation yesterday where I was looking at some of the bigger macro statistics out there. And if you look at the labor force participation rate for women, it's back to the 1970s level. So you may remember that women came into the labor force in 1970s. It grew, and now we're back to those levels and largely it's because of childcare. And if you have a choice between staying home and taking care of your baby, or if there's no childcare option, you're sort of stuck there. Right. So it's a scary thing, but it might start to improve as we get the childcare operations back in action. And as COVID improves, because right now some of the ratios of childcare providers to children have shrunk. So in time that might improve actually. So we'll wait to see,

Brendan Healy: (17:00)
It's interesting. I've heard of a few providers who are actually considering putting small childcare components onto their campuses to allow for their nursing staff to have a place to have their children. So I dunno if that'll continue to evolve or not.

Beth Mace: (17:11)
I wonder if there's a legal issue with that at all in terms of...

Brendan Healy: (17:13)
That's a good question. I think they're exploring it, but yeah, that,

Beth Mace: (17:16)
I mean, it would be great. That could be a win-win cause certainly most of the residents I know in seniors housing properties love children. Especially if you don't have to keep 'em all the time, you just get to play with them. Occasionally. Right? Okay. How about any ideas on how to grow talent in the industry? We talked about mentorship. We talked a little bit about the some of the organizations that are out there doing that. Some universities have programs, any other ideas?

Brendan Healy: (17:40)
Yeah. You know, I think the stories I've heard throughout my career of the number of owners and operators today that started as a DON or a nurse or administrator and worked for a number of years and then kind of built up their skillset. Maybe offered to purchase that building. Found some people to help scrape together some equity to buy that building from a previous owner and then kind of built it from there. I think if people can understand the opportunity that's out there beyond just their, maybe initial step into the space. And then number two, Scott kind of touched on this, but I think that younger generation right now has a heavy focus on service and philanthropy, which is a great thing. And I think if people can understand that there's an opportunity to be wonderfully financially successful here, but also serve in your life and give back to the senior citizens that are in these communities, it might make a stronger appeal.

Beth Mace: (18:27)
Yeah. That's, that's interesting. I was talking about this yesterday separately with someone, that the millennials now are such an important part of our workforce and everything I've read and learned from my own experience is that there are different motivating factors for a millennial to work than a baby boomer, for example. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Scott Tittle: (18:46)
I think the greatest challenge obviously is the labor workforce, and I think those are some great options on how to grow down in the future. For sure.

Beth Mace: (18:53)
Yep. What is one innovative idea you might have to help the industry going forward. Putting labor and staff issues aside, something else that you can see that would bring us forward?

Scott Tittle: (19:04)
Yeah. I mean, it's probably goes back to what I mentioned before is I do think there's an opportunity for operators to take more control over the payment because I think that's gonna be a growing need in the future to make sure that operators are striving to provide higher quality care at a more efficient rates. And so if Medicaid... I started out my comments, you know, if we don't somehow figure out a way to have more robust Medicaid rates, we've gotta find a way to provide high quality care in a more efficient way. And I think operators should take back control over the payment stream, through ISIP or the provider networks, that's a great opportunity. So not a new answer from the prior question, but that feels like that's a really interesting opportunity for the sector going forward.

Beth Mace: (19:41)
Brendan, any other ideas in terms of innovative approach to something about technology or..

Brendan Healy: (19:46)
Yeah. I was gonna say... I mean, I don't have the silver bullet, but data is gonna be more and more of a player in the sector. We're seeing it with NIC Maps, we're seeing it with market intelligence, with referral and discharge, readmission statistics, data that's out there. People utilizing cost reports to build out proforma projections, models, nationwide statewide. People monitoring behavioral patterns of residents within their facilities. And I think it's going continue to kind of evolve from there.

Beth Mace: (20:12)
So why is that? Why would that be helpful in terms of like readmission statistics, for example? How would I, if I was an operator of either a skilled nursing or a senior housing property, why would that be of interest to me?

Brendan Healy: (20:22)
Well, it's critical to see how your outcomes are being tracked compared to other people within your county, within the state that you're competing against to be able to share that information with the hospitals, with potential referral business to basically say our facility is providing higher quality of care. Look at the outcomes we're getting. This is gonna allow us to be a better outcome for you. So we're not going back to the hospital. It's going here and then back to home and it'll just hopefully create more demand for that particular facility and be a marketing tool.

Beth Mace: (20:56)
It's interesting. NIC Map Vision is doing a fabulous job of gathering new data and how to use that data. Like Medicare beneficiary claims for example, is something that's gonna be new that they're featuring in their NIC Map Vision platform. So I think the industry is changing and how they're looking at data and interpreting data. And making business decisions off of data is definitely evolving.

Scott Tittle: (21:19)
I think what Brendan said too, you know, referral networks in the future are going to be asking for that information. I think in some cases, some value-based purchasing programs on the SNF Medicaid side may incorporate that in as one of the metrics you could hit for a state Medicaid reimbursement bump but I think the consumer is gonna become even more focused on data going forward and so you'd have adult children they're largely shopping for mom and dad. They're gonna start asking these questions more and more. So I think for an operator to know what their hospital readmission rate is for themselves to understand their own performance, but others are gonna be asking for it too.

Beth Mace: (21:51)
Yeah. Very interesting. All right. So let's go back, we found out one of your truths that you have. I'm still shocked by three triplets and a new baby boy. I have two sons and they're three years apart and I thought that was tough. So I can't imagine triplets. Sorry.

Brendan Healy: (22:10)
That's how it was with my brother and I, so I can't imagine either.

Beth Mace: (22:12)
Oh, you're a triplet too?

Brendan Healy: (22:13)
No, no. I'm just saying three years apart. Two, two boys.

Beth Mace: (22:16)
So do you have a dual citizenship or are you a scratch golfer? Which is true?

Brendan Healy: (22:22)
I am not a stretch golfer. I am an atrocious golfer. I never played golf and most of my colleagues at VIUM Capital did and some levels of skill between them. Some are very good. Some are pretty solid. I'm awful and I don't know that I'll ever have the time with the four kids to learn how to play golf and I'm very competitive. So when I tried to play it just frustrates me. I'm a dual citizen. My dad was born in Scotland and I didn't find out until after college that made me a eligible to be a British citizen as well. So I have a British and a U.S. passport.

Beth Mace: (22:54)
Very nice. Did that help you actually during COVID at all?

Brendan Healy: (22:57)
It didn't. My wife and I talked about that a little bit and she made sure I renewed my passport, but no. What allowed me to do is... I played lacrosse in college and my brother and I were able to actually play on the Scottish National Lacrosse team in the world cup of lacrosse, which is kind of cool. So it was fun.

Beth Mace: (23:14)
Oh, that's cool. All right. So Scott, let's go back for a minute. So I wanna hear a little bit more about when you were at NCAL and in this new position that was created at VIUM for governmental relationships. So how is that gonna help this company that really does financing?

Scott Tittle: (23:29)
Yeah. In my most recent role, I served as the executive director for the National Center for Assisted Living for six years. Which really gave me a great opportunity to kind of see the whole country and work with the assisted living operators in every state. As I mentioned before, I got to know some Brendan's partners about 10 years ago, and kept a really close working relationship with them when they were all Lancaster Pollard because they were sponsors of our trade association at the state level and also at the national association. So as I heard more and more about the company they were gonna be building you know, became more clear to me, especially during COVID just how linked finance is with operations and the sector are large. And so that advocacy regulatory piece that I've worked on for the last really 11 or 12 years in the association world, I'm really for looking forward to kind of bringing it to the company as we grow. Because I think that's another thing that COVID kind of taught us that regulatory policy and financing reimbursement are all inextricably linked. You can't... They're not detached anymore. And so I'll bring what I know about the sector while learning about the sector going forward to our board, to our executive committee, to our clients, and then also help advocate for the sector, both in state capitals and nationally. Joining national associations like NIC and state trade associations as well. When there is an important incumbent advocacy effort, that'll make the sector more robust. And I just wanna make sure that operas always have an environment where they can be successful. And so I I'm really looking forward to playing this new role at VIUM.

Beth Mace: (24:53)
Well, it's a differentiator for sure because I don't know a lot of companies... Cause you're fairly, relatively small growing. But to have that... So that's awesome for you guys and awesome for you at the same time.

Brendan Healy: (25:01)
Yeah. I mean, we looked at it as a major need to service our clients and coming out of the pandemic, everyone has capital. There's plenty of lenders here. There's a lot of equity here but how can we advocate for our clients and help them at a bigger level beyond just providing that.

Beth Mace: (25:16)
That's awesome. That's great. So we're almost about to wrap up. So anything else you wanna share with our audience here about your organizations or yourselves?

Scott Tittle: (25:26)
I'll steal a line from my former boss, Mark Parkinson, earlier from one of the main general sessions. I'm just really so proud of the sector over the last 18 to 20 months. I mean the grit and determination by skilled and AL operators and IL operators. I mean just hang in there. I mean, I always say that one of the things I love about the sector is you have a lot of smart people that could be making more money doing something else in another industry with a lot less stress. But everybody stayed in it and everybody hung in there and I think it really showed the real grit of the sector. I think that's the optimism we've heard today at your conference. Coming out of this, there's a real opportunity for the sector position itself going forward.

Beth Mace: (26:05)
Yeah. I really like that.True grit.

Scott Tittle: (26:07)
I think that's a theme we've heard today and I think that's what I kinda wanted see going forward in the sector.

Beth Mace: (26:13)
That's great.

Brendan Healy: (26:14)
Yeah. I agree. I mean, when you look at the buzz and excitement in this conference, the energy level...

Beth Mace: (26:19)
You feel it, right? Yeah. It's great. Yeah. You can hear, too.

Brendan Healy: (26:21)
We're talking about the next year, but I think everyone's very bullish on the next decade. There's a lot of things to solve, but it's a smart and incredibly talented group of individuals that are in this community. And I think they'll figure it out.

Beth Mace: (26:31)
Yeah. And our industry needs it, right? It's a need based industry. And we see these demographics coming at us that there are many more people that are gonna need it. I look at statistics like, in terms of, we did a study a few years ago called the forgotten middle. And in that we looked at the characteristics of the people who are gonna be the middle market. And 60% will have mobility limitations. 60%. So you can't just put them in... Can't retrofit all your homes. Right? So for the people are gonna have to attempt to go somewhere and cognitive impairment challenges and things like that. So, yeah. It's an interesting time when we're seeing healthcare move more into our sector. And so it's just a lot going on.

Scott Tittle: (27:14)
Well to talk about, too. As the demographics move into 2025, the need for our sector is gonna be multiples higher than now. Right? It's gonna be a challenge and an opportunity for the sector to figure out how to meet the needs of the baby boom generation coming into all levels of care. Of course that workforce need is there, so we're gonna figure, we figure out between now and then to solve the workforce issue.

Beth Mace: (27:37)
Okay. So that's great. So I think we're gonna call that a wrap. So thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you for coming and for those who are interested in hearing this again or are paying attention to it, you can check out nic.org/chats, and you'll see where all the other NIC Chats that we've been doing. So thank you very much. And hope to see you virtually.