Ventas, Inc. (NYSE:VTR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Justin Hutchens : So it’s Justin. So I’m going to go back to what I was just talking about, which is demand. So another part of this is just affordability in our markets, which is very high and there’s demand for the services. So you have the combination of people needing the service and people having the ability to pay. And with numbers that we’ve never seen before in terms of demand at the doorstep. So that should be supportive of pricing power moving forward. There’s always some sensitivity relative to inflation and CPI. But what you’re really working to do to generate earnings growth is to create a spread. And we’ve been effective in doing that in this cycle.

Debra A. Cafaro : And you would think as you take capacity out of the market through higher occupancies, that you may maintain some all or more of this pricing power.

Operator: Your next question will come from the line of Derek Johnston with Deutsche Bank.

Derek Johnston : On SHOP OpEx release and specific to labor costs and agency, pre pandemic, I don’t recall agency labor being material at all or even utilized outside of very special situations. So there’s been improvement, no doubt. But how do you plan to get agency labor out of your centers? And can you achieve pre-pandemic levels of agency labor by year-end ’23?

Justin Hutchens : It’s Justin. You’re absolutely right. Agency was close to zero pre-pandemic. Obviously, there’s been big shifts in the labor market since then. And we’ve had it enter our sector as others. We’ve managed to bring it down, which you’ve noted. In our 2023 guidance, we assume lower agency than we did in ’22 year-over-year. And so that’s supportive of our moderating expenses. But we are, in fact, carrying that Q4 run rate, which is like 2% of revenue forward throughout the year. There is — I mentioned in my prepared remarks the guidance range. It assumes lower expenses and more occupancy at the top end, works the other way on the bottom. So we’ve incorporated that into our thinking. But we’re anticipating that agency remains relatively stable.

Debra A. Cafaro : And this is true across healthcare at large and is principally a function of the labor force participation rate and other kind of macro factors. And the key is really to take the actions at the hiring level that Justin mentioned about positive net hiring, where you’re at least getting your fair share of that workforce.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steven Valiquette with Barclays.

Steven Valiquette : So just on the SHOP, you talked about the seasonality earlier. But on Slide 18 of the presentation, you talk about expecting normal historical seasonality in 1Q ’23 versus 4Q ’22. It’s a little bit of a sensitive subject, but I guess to the extent that high flu prevalence historically leads to, let’s call it, elevated levels of resident expirations, I thought that would have been a trend that maybe would hurt occupancy a little bit in the fourth quarter, just given the normal spike in flu happened so much earlier this season in the fourth quarter instead of 1Q. And then inversely, with flu really kind of falling off dramatically here in 1Q ’23, I would have thought the historical downtick maybe would not really happen this year in 1Q. So hopefully, all that kind of makes sense. I just wanted to get your thoughts on the early flu potentially altering some of the normal seasonal trend.