The Future Leaders Awards program is brought to you in partnership with PointClickCare (BHB, SHN, SNN) and Homecare Homebase (HHCN, HSPN). The program is designed to recognize up-and-coming industry members who are shaping the future of behavioral health, home health, hospice and palliative care, senior housing and skilled nursing. To see this year’s Future Leaders, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
Eric Rosenstock, senior managing director with Greystone, has been named a 2023 Future Leader by Skilled Nursing News.
To become a Future Leader, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a high-performing employee who is 40 years old or younger, a passionate worker who knows how to put vision into action, and an advocate for seniors and the committed professionals who ensure their well-being.
Rosenstock sat down with Skilled Nursing News to discuss career tenacity, his three key life principles, and why a federal, systematic approach to the industry is sorely needed.
What drew you to this industry?
I interviewed initially coming out of high school and I met two young individuals that were working at Greystone at the time, they were fairly successful. I was drawn to that success. Short story, I got turned down for the job.
Three years later, I reinterview, got turned down again. About two years after that is when Greystone reached out to me, the CEO directly, and said, ‘Hey, come on board.’ Those two individuals, I’ll tell you, I’m actually still very close to them … they lead a top three health care lending shop in the country.
What’s your biggest lesson learned since starting to work in this industry?
I’ve always had three key principles that I’ve stuck to; I’ve never ever shied away from it. And I think that this little thesis, if you will, that I hold in my pocket of how to from a character perspective, how to conduct myself, has led me through the ups, the downs, the everything, and I think that it’s something that’s going to lead me as well to the future.
The first thing is perseverance – tenacity, hunger, drive; you’ve got to keep on going. In this business you have to keep on pushing the wagon because the second you stop, it’s not going to go by itself.
Number two – honesty and integrity … especially if you want to deal with the big REITs and the publicly-traded corporations, institutional guys.
Third is smarts. You have to be smart, but I don’t think you need to be a genius in order to make it in this business, right?
If you could change one thing with an eye toward the future of skilled nursing, what would it be?
From a federal perspective, I think there has to be better governance as opposed to state by state. I think the way that it currently is set up where every single state is so drastically different than the next, it leaves space for a rodeo show. We have to have one gold standard from a federal perspective. That’s number one.
Number two, I think HUD has to be more focused on the financial [stability] of facilities.
I would rather see a more systematic national approach from a federal level. I think that would be a lot easier to understand. It would bring consistency to the marketplace, and I think that we would all have a better understanding of certain goalposts to reach.
What do you foresee as being different about the skilled nursing industry looking ahead to the rest of 2023 and into 2024?
With high interest rates, for the first time in a very, very long time, we’re seeing skilled nursing facilities be debt coverage constrained, which we really haven’t seen too often.
People that have been in this space longer, that are a little bit more risk adjusted, not as aggressive, been around the block and started off as an administrator in training – those people are going to persevere rather than someone that’s just trying to grow as fast as they possibly can. A lot of those slow and steady people will persevere. Unfortunately, you’re going to see a lot of people that were going too fast; you’re going to see some of those people get hurt.
In a word, how would you describe the future of skilled nursing?
Everlasting, thriving. It’s always going to be needed. Not everyone can afford private help in the comfort of their own home, that gets quite expensive. It’s something that in a way is recession proof. Don’t get me wrong, expenses could continue to go up and we’re going to have to make adjustments on that. But if you take a look historically, from a trend perspective, reimbursements have gone up as well. That’s the nature of inflation. This is an asset class that’s going to be around for a very, very, very long time.
What quality must all Future Leaders possess?
View yourself as a mentor.
If you could give advice to yourself looking back to your first day in the industry, what would it be and why?
Patience. I think that the world we live in is very impatient. The world we live in has instant gratification, especially with the everlasting change in technology.
To learn more about the Future Leaders program, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
