Hello and welcome to the Brookdale Senior Living fourth quarter Earnings Release Call. My name is Lauren, and I will be coordinating your call today. If you would like to ask a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand you over to your host, Kathy MacDonald, to begin. Kathy, please go ahead. Thank you and good morning. I'd like to welcome you to the fourth quarter 2021 earnings call for Brookdale Senior Living. Joining us today are Cindy Baier, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Steve Swain, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. All statements today, which are not historical facts, may be deemed to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are made as of today's date, and we expressly disclaim any obligation to update these statements in the future. Actual results and performance may differ materially from forward-looking statements. Certain of these factors that could cause actual results to differ are detailed in the earnings release we issued yesterday, as well as the reports we file with the SEC from time to time, including risk factors contained in our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. I direct you to the release for the full safe harbor statement. Also, please note that during this call we will present non-GAAP financial measures. For reconciliations of each non-GAAP measure from the most comparable GAAP measure, I direct you to the release and supplemental information which may be found at brookdale.com/investor and was furnished on an 8-K yesterday. Now I will turn the call over to Cindy. Thank you, Kathy. Good morning to all of our shareholders, analysts, and other participants. I hope that you and your loved ones are safe and sound. Welcome to our fourth quarter and year-end 2021 earnings call. During 2021, we utilized the knowledge we gained from the first year of the pandemic to begin our recovery. Despite multiple new COVID-19 variants, we delivered 10 months of sequential occupancy growth. As we enter the third year of the pandemic to improve margins. Our associates have my deepest gratitude for their extraordinary leadership as well as their dedication to and compassion for our residents. During this lengthy, unprecedented public health crisis, our associates' efforts have been intense, and they have remained steadfast in their commitment. Thankful for the trust that our residents and their loved ones have placed in Brookdale. As I reflect on the past year, I am very proud of our ability to rise. We entered the year in a race between COVID-19 vaccines and exponential growth in cases in the general U.S. population. By April, we were celebrating a reported 97% decline in resident COVID-19 cases in our communities from the peak in mid-December 2020 to the end of April 2021. As you know, the pandemic has been incredibly intense for all healthcare workers, including our senior living associates. Our associates stood strong on the front lines, supporting our residents and each other. That said, the success of the vaccine and the reduction of cases in the U.S. resulted in businesses across many industries reopening in full force, creating fierce competition for talent. We, too, are competing for that talent. Our associates' passion, resilience, and commitment drive our success. They repeatedly rise to the challenge from our executive directors and other community heroes who engage with our residents each and every day. To our clinical team, who work through multiple sets of resident and associate vaccine clinics for each of our communities and effective ways to connect with prospective residents, and to our associates who support those who live or work in our communities. It has been an intense year, and we are solidly on the path to recovery. At the beginning of 2021, I introduced three strategic pillars to differentiate Brookdale services with a focus on health plus care through our vaccine clinic strategy. We demonstrated this commitment early in 2021 by rapidly hosting three or more cities. By April, our resident vaccine acceptance was 93%, and as of January 31st, 2022, was above 95%. As COVID-19 vaccines received FDA authorization, our vaccine strategy was further strengthened when we adopted a policy requiring our associates to be fully vaccinated with limited exceptions. As of the end of January, 97% of our associates are in compliance with our vaccine policy. Even before the international news broke about the Omicron variant, we knew that time was of the essence to set up booster clinics. We quickly identified more than 30 different pharmacies and healthcare providers who could assist with this massive effort since the government program ended with the completion of our initial vaccine clinics in April 2020 communities. In fact, the majority of our communities already have hosted a second booster clinic. Since we started our COVID-19 vaccine clinics, more than 100 were administered to seniors in our communities and to our associates. Our 10-month occupancy recovery has been driven by our intense focus on vaccinations, executing our strategy and operational expertise, all of which allowed us to deliver service expected from our residents and their families, prospective residents and healthcare advocates. The second pillar, we applied a Lean Six Sigma process to make our sales cycle more effective, efficient, and replicable across our diverse portfolio. Our marketing, connection center, and sales teams worked together to focus efforts where we had the best lead funnel opportunities. We continued to enhance our digital programs, including search engine optimization. These enhancements delivered a higher inquiry-to-move-in conversion rate, with the fourth quarter 2021 having the highest rate since the fourth quarter 2017. In addition, our fourth quarter 2021 move-ins were higher than our three-year fourth quarter pre-pandemic average. This allowed our fourth quarter occupancy to outpace the industry sequentially, as reported by NIC on a stabilized basis. The third strategic pillar was to better capitalize on our leadership position for residents and prospects with higher acuity needs. With our deep understanding of seniors' healthcare needs and how to create the right conditions to improve quality of life, we look to extend residents' length of stay through an integrated healthcare continuum. We have taken steps to enhance our coordination with our residents' primary care teams. After the mid-year transition of our home health and hospice business, we are working with HCA Healthcare and LHC Group to continue delivering high-quality services to our residents. Since the vaccine-led start of our recovery in March 2021, occupancy grew 500 basis points in our assisted living memory care segment, which is approximately 70% of our portfolio today. These three pillars of growth led to a strong occupancy recovery in 2021. Let me share financial highlights for the fourth quarter. December was the 10th consecutive month of weighted average occupancy growth and was the first December in nine years to deliver sequential occupancy growth. In addition, the fourth quarter was the first positive year-over-year occupancy growth since the pandemic began. Historically, our fourth quarter occupancy percentage is relatively flat for the third quarter, so a 100-basis points occupancy increase in the fourth quarter is outstanding. As the Omicron variant rose in the general population, we benefited from hosting booster clinics in our communities while continuing our strong protocols to help protect our residents and associates. As of early February, almost all of our communities were open to move-ins. As we continue to navigate the national labor crisis, we found it necessary to use higher contract labor at an accelerated pace in the fourth quarter due to staffing challenges and CDC, state or local COVID-19 quarantine protocols where appropriate. Our contract labor levels remained elevated in January but improved slightly month-over-month. In addition to the operational precautions we took throughout the pandemic, we also took important actions to help protect and strengthen our financial position. As of December 31st, we had $537 million of available liquidity. Beyond the benefit of occupancy growth, during 2021, we enhanced our balance sheet. Early in the year, we announced the sale of our home health, hospice, and outpatient therapy segment, and completed the smooth transition by mid-year. It was significantly oversubscribed. Aligned with our stated use of a portion of the convertible notes proceeds, we paid off a small but high-interest rate loan, refinanced the first quarter 2022 debt maturities, and prepaid a substantial portion of the remaining 2022 debt maturities. In 2022, we expect to receive government grants from phase IV of the Provider Relief Fund. This will offset a portion of the expenses we continue to incur to help protect our residents and associates against COVID-19. In summary, in 2021, we delivered 10 months of sequential weighted average occupancy growth and increased annual RevPOR by 3% despite new pandemic peaks occurring during the year. The actions we took strengthened our liquidity position, and we have the right team to set the stage for accelerating our profitable growth strategy. I'll now turn to our strategic priorities for 2022 and a summary of our financial guidance. We remain committed to our goal of being the nation's first choice in senior living by being the most trusted and effective senior living provider and employer. As we work to accelerate our recovery, we are focused on three priorities that will position us for growth. Our first priority is to attract, engage, develop, and retain the best associates. As a people-focused business, it is crucial that our associates have the right skills for their own development as well as for providing our residents with the best possible experience. I'm pleased that for the second year in a row, Training magazine recognized Brookdale as one of the elite Training APEX Award winners. We continue to enhance our associate value proposition due to the unprecedented competition for talent. By the end of 2021, we reviewed wages in all our markets, made appropriate adjustments, and will monitor to ensure that we remain competitive in 2022. We started modifying our recruiting plans. By year-end 2021, we saw net positive hires, and our January net positive hires were even better. With this early success, we will continue to enhance our recruiting plans to make further progress. Our second priority is to get every available room in service at the best profitable rates. At our core, the business provides high-quality, needs-based services. We will remain focused on driving appropriate pricing to match the services we deliver in each community within our portfolio. As part of our targeted sales and marketing efforts, we expect to attract the growing senior population through enhanced outreach and by publicizing each community's points of differentiation. Our final priority is to earn resident and family trust and satisfaction by providing valued, high-quality care and personalized service. Every positive encounter with a resident, family member, or customer advocate can lead to future referrals. Therefore, it's important that we provide high-quality experiences in everything we do. While we believe we already have a strong customer focus, we're a learning organization, and we will continue to raise the bar higher. Turning to our 2022 guidance. The recovery efforts we delivered in 2021 have set the foundation to accelerate growth in 2022. We expect annual RevPAR growth of 10%-12%. We expect adjusted EBITDA in the range of $240 million-$260 million. This range implies substantial improvement. I'll now turn the call over to Steve. Thanks, Cindy. There are three key takeaways related to our financial results. First, RevPAR growth. Fourth quarter RevPAR increased 4% compared to the prior year quarter. This was the first quarter with year-over-year RevPAR growth since the brunt of the pandemic. 10 months of sequential occupancy growth in 2021, combined with continued price discipline, drove a strong first year of the recovery. Second, expenses. On a sequential basis, lower G&A partially mitigated the higher use of contract labor and fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA. To strengthen our balance sheet, we completed two significant transactions in the fourth quarter. We raised over $200 million from a convertible note offering and completed a $100 million refinancing of our first quarter 2022 debt maturities. In addition, we prepaid nearly all of our remaining 2022 maturities. Now, let me provide context for these highlights on a same community basis, starting with revenue. RevPOR or rate was approximately 3% higher than the prior year on both a quarter and annual basis. The impact was partially offset by higher move-in rates for new residents entering our communities. Combining rate with occupancy growth, fourth quarter RevPAR increased nearly 4% on a year-over-year basis. This is significant progress given the multiple COVID-19 waves that hit in 2021. Turning to operating expense, recognized in the fourth quarter of 2020, same community operating income increased 11% on a year-over-year basis, and operating margin improved 130 basis points. For management services revenue, we completed the transition of more than half of our managed communities in 2021. With a small portfolio, we started reporting management services. In the transaction and organizational restructuring costs and non-cash stock-based comp was lower sequentially and compared to the prior year quarter. Given the unpredictability of the pandemic, there were fewer than expected health claims, and we also reduced our bonus estimate. Full year G&A expense was 4% lower than in 2020, primarily related to the Brookdale Health Care Services associates who transitioned with the business to HCA Healthcare effective July 2021. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $36 million compared to $99 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, when we recognized $78 million of government grant income. Turning to adjusted free cash flow. Working capital was a significant use of cash, driving fourth quarter adjusted free cash flow lower. $35 million was for scheduled CARES Act repayments and recoupments, mainly related to our payroll tax deferral program. In addition, approximately $40 million was for an extra week of payroll due to calendar timing, real estate taxes, and the working capital impact of fewer healthcare claims that I described earlier. Turning to the third highlighted topic, liquidity. As of December 31st, total liquidity was $537 million. The actions we took have fortified our balance sheet and enhanced liquidity throughout the pandemic. Most recently, in the past two quarters, we strengthened our liquidity position by nearly $350 million when we successfully completed the 80% sale of our home health hospice and outpatient therapy business to HCA Healthcare. Then the Brookdale HCA Healthcare venture subsequently sold a select group of agencies to LHC Group. We look forward to working with both companies and having these high-quality health care services continue to be available for our residents. In the fourth quarter, we executed two significant transactions. We raised more than $200 million of cash through a convertible note offering, which bears an interest rate of 2%. Aligned with our intended use of cash, we immediately paid off our only high-interest rate loan. In December, we completed a $100 million refinancing of our first quarter 2022 maturities. In addition, we used $141 million to prepay substantially all of our remaining 2022 debt maturities, which will save several million dollars of interest expense. Turning to 2022 guidance. With 10 months of sequential occupancy growth in 2021, we have set the stage for delivering year-over-year RevPAR and adjusted EBITDA growth, resulting in adjusted free cash flow improvement. We expect annual RevPAR growth of 10%-12% from occupancy gains and rate increases. We expect adjusted EBITDA in the range of $240 million-$260 million. This excludes the benefit of future government grants. At the midpoint of the range, adjusted EBITDA would increase 80% from 2021. Let me provide first quarter being the lowest occupancy quarter of the year. We expect to build occupancy in the second quarter and to accelerate that momentum in the third quarter. Pre-pandemic, first quarter occupancy declined sequentially by approximately 80 basis points. In the first quarter of 2022, we expect the seasonal decline will be more than offset by rate increases. This communication effort was effective. When compared to historical norms, we haven't seen a noticeable change in move-outs related to the rate increase. Now, turning to community levels of labor expense. First, contract labor and overtime. We had a sequential increase in the third quarter, and as discussed, this accelerated throughout the fourth quarter of 2021. With a difficult labor market and COVID-19 affecting associates in January 2022, we continued to use higher levels of contract labor. We plan to actively reduce overtime and contract labor costs by filling open positions. The savings from lower overtime and fewer contractors will more than offset the cost of filling these positions. In most cases, the cost of contract labor per hour is at a significant premium compared to a permanent associate's rate. The second component is merit and market rate adjustments. As Cindy mentioned, in 2021, we reviewed wages in all of our markets and made adjustments where appropriate. We will monitor to ensure we remain competitive in 2022. The final component is incremental variable labor cost, which is expected to increase with continued occupancy growth. In summary, when we combine these three components, we expect total community labor expense will increase at a higher percentage in 2022. Therefore, we expect annual facility operating expenses to increase mid-single digits in 2022. In our investor presentation, which is posted on our website, we listed other key financial considerations. With our expected strong occupancy and rate increases, along with partially mitigating operating expense increases, we expect substantial EBITDA growth in 2022. I will now turn the call back over to Cindy. In 2022, the baby boomer demographics are finally at a point Brookdale dreamed about more than 15 years ago. There is a rapidly growing senior population that requires high quality, needs-based services. Starting this year, we expect more than 1 million new seniors will enter our target market every year for the rest of this decade. Even before the pandemic, new supply was shrinking, and for the past two years, supply has become a more significant tailwind. In the second half of 2021, NIC reported there were the fewest units under construction since 2015. Throughout the pandemic, Brookdale continued to work with a third-party service to conduct brand awareness surveys. Brookdale mentions are around 2 x greater than the next closest competitor among people who expressed awareness of Brookdale without prompting. We also continue to drive our leadership position with our clinical and operational expertise. In addition to these promising statistics, I'm confident Brookdale has the right team. We are focused on what matters most, enriching the lives of those we serve. Throughout the year, I hear stories of our residents' determination to pursue their best lives. This inspires me to continue to push Brookdale forward to be the best senior living company in the industry. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from the line of Tao Qiu from Stifel. Tao, please go ahead. Hey, good morning, everyone. Cindy, the positive commentary you offered today certainly feels like we're turning the page on the pandemic, and this is the first time you've given, you know, a full year guidance. The recovery has been on firmer footing since spring last year, but there are still many uncertainties on labor and the public health emergency is still ongoing. What gives you the confidence of providing outlook for 2022? Tao, thank you so much for your question. We have now been operating in a pandemic for the third year, and so we have a lot of experience in what happens during COVID waves. We have been very excited that despite the COVID waves during the fourth quarter, we were able to outperform our historical move-in growth with strong performance on move-outs, controllable move-outs. As we look at the market, we do see a very competitive labor market, but we're taking proactive steps to effectively manage that. For those reasons, we believe that providing guidance is the right thing. As you can see from our guidance, we're solidly on the path to recovery. Gotcha. Yeah, thanks for the building blocks for the guidance. My next question is about, you know, the long-term margin outlook. Clearly, the margins, the guidance shows that operating leverage of the business. When we talk about industry and Brookdale, we always refer to the average number. I know that on average margin is down 10 percentage points compared to pre-COVID levels. But at the same time, you also have a quarter of your communities at or above 85% occupancy. Could you help us understand, you know, how margin has evolved for these properties that either haven't experienced so much decline in census through the pandemic or are recovering faster? You know, how does margin compare to pre-COVID levels today? The good news is that there's a lot of opportunity for margin expansion. Our business has high fixed costs associated with operating our communities 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Steve can talk to you a little bit about what we expect for the future, but needless to say, we expect margin growth. Yeah. Morning, Tao. We do, as Cindy said, expect margin expansion, as we scale operations. The expected operating expense improvements will be driven primarily by labor, which we expect to improve. We're improving labor by filling open positions, so contract labor and overtime will be expected to decline. Of course, when we backfill a contract labor outsourced associate with a new hire, it's at a lower rate. As occupancy builds kind of throughout 2020, communities will be covering their fixed staffing costs, and therefore are expected to drive higher incremental margins. Certainly, over the long term, we would expect to return to pre-pandemic margin levels. Okay. I'm just trying to understand what the gap today on the more stabilized properties. You know, obviously, you've got the higher rate increases, offsetting some of the labor expenses. Just, you know, if occupancy is, you know, pretty much close to pre-pandemic levels, what's the gap on the margin there? Yeah. I think in the higher occupancy communities, what you have to recognize is that we did our rate increase sort of January 1st, which took into consideration the labor pressures that would not have been reflected in our fourth quarter results. Certainly, our fourth quarter contract labor was significantly higher than we expect once we get our hiring back to more traditional levels. Great. Hey, Tao, we should probably turn on to the next question or the next person who's gonna ask a question. Thanks, Tao. Our next question comes from the line of Joshua Raskin from Nephron Research. Josh, please go ahead. Hi. Thanks. Good morning. I've got a question and maybe a follow-up as well. If I think about the EBITDA guidance for 2022, it's an increase of, let's call it $110 million or so over the 4Q run rate. Steve, I wanna make sure I heard it right. Did you say labor would increase as a percentage of revenues? If so, if it's not labor, maybe or maybe I misheard that, what are the major buckets to get that incremental $110 million or so of EBITDA, and how much do each contribute? Yep. The major buckets, of course, is revenue growth. RevPAR of 10%-12% will increase revenue by approximately 10%-12%. That's over $250 million. We're kinda looking at expenses. I said that operating expense on a year-over-year basis would be up about 5%. That takes care of kind of NOI on margin, if you will. Looking at G&A on a year-over-year basis. G&A, when you think about kinda some of the building blocks there, we'll have merit where we'll be resetting kind of the bonus and benefits accruals and backfilling some open positions as well as increasing travel a little bit. So there too, G&A will be up a few percentage points. So that should kinda get you to the EBITDA guidance for 2022, which is of course up 80%. Yeah. Okay. Then just maybe taking that step back. Occupancy got up to 73.5% weighted average in the fourth quarter, but that's still, you know, 1,100 basis points below where you were at the end of 2019. Today, you've got 22% fewer beds than you did in 2019. I'm trying to figure out what's a reasonable EBITDA target. I heard Cindy just say you'd expect long-term margins to be back to pre-pandemic levels. I assume that's on a percentage. You know, you did $400 million of EBITDA in 2019. What's the bogey? What's the, "Hey, when we get this set of communities back to where we think we can," what's a reasonable number? The way that I would think about that is our industry, and Brookdale in particular, has been at that 89%-90% sort of stabilized occupancy before the oversupply hit the industry. We're looking at a path to get back to that 89%-90% stabilized occupancy across the portfolio. We can't provide a timeline at this point in terms of when that will happen, but that's our goal. Certainly, in an inflationary environment, our goal is to match RevPOR growth with cost growth. That's something we'll pay a lot of attention to, and that will help us with our margins over the longer term. You're saying well above the 2019 levels, right? And so, your expectation would be that supply, and new construction wouldn't pick up like it did last time when occupancy got up into the high 80s. There's no question that we are seeing some increase in new supply this year relative to during the pandemic, but there are the fewest units under construction in many years. What that tells me is that for the next 18-24 months, we have a tailwind of the reduction in supply from the pandemic. It's important to note that there's significant growth in the population of seniors entering our marketplace with 1 million new seniors entering our target market this year and every year for the near future. That's all. Our next question comes from the line of Steven Valiquette from Barclays. Steven, please go ahead. Great. Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Steven. All of your commentary on the labor expense was pretty helpful. I guess I'm just curious as a follow-up whether or not you're seeing any notable circumstances within the overall Brookdale community portfolio where you've had to turn away any new prospective residents because of staffing issues. Can we check the box that the potential trend of, let's call it, you know, lost occupancy due to labor shortages is hopefully something that you're, you know, generally not expecting to be prevalent within Brookdale in 2022 because of your ability to tap into temporary or contract labor across the majority of your communities. Just curious to get your thoughts around that. Thanks. You know, thanks for the question. Let me start by saying there have been two factors that I think about as it relates to new move-ins. I think the first is when a community is closed to move-ins because of regulatory requirements, and that's something that has been a very small issue for us during the fourth quarter and into 2022. The second issue that you asked specifically about is whether we have had to turn away move-ins because of labor in our communities, and that has not been a significant issue. One of the things that's true about our business is that we have to be staffed, and we have to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. If we have an opening, we need to call in contract labor, and that is an expensive alternative for us. It can be 2x-3x the cost of our normal, our workers. It is something that we pay attention to, but luckily, we have not had to turn away any significant number of residents as a result of labor. Okay. All right, perfect. I appreciate the color. Thanks. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Tanquilut from Jefferies. Brian, please go ahead. Hey, good morning, guys. Just a follow-up to Josh's question earlier, I guess. As I think about the components of your margin expansion and the EBITDA guide, obviously revenue will be the key driver given that OpEx is growing and G&A. If I'm trying to look, Cindy, at the RevPOR or even like RevPAR growth, your RevPOR growing mid-singles, I mean, how does that compare to the rest of the industry based on what you're seeing? How are you thinking about you know the market share gains or the outperformance versus NIC data that you've seen in the last quarter given that pricing strategy? Brian, we have always been very disciplined about rate, and that's something that's been true throughout the pandemic. From what I understand, the industry recognizes that it's necessary to drive rate because of the inflationary environment that we're in. If you look at the public commentary of other operators and of the healthcare REITs, you'll see that that rate is higher in 2022 than it has been historically. We think that's something that is very good. Now, the opportunity that is unique to Brookdale is we have more upside in our portfolio. If we can continue, which I believe that we can, that sequential occupancy growth, that will give us significant leverage. If you think about sort of 2022 and from March low to December, we grew occupancy 420 basis points. Certainly, we've demonstrated that we can have a long run of occupancy growth. As we do that, our shareholders will be rewarded by that 10%-12% revenue growth, which will drop to about an 80% improvement in our EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, during 2022. We'll continue to grow from there. Got it. I guess for Steve, you know, you burned $139 million of cash during the quarter. I get that some of that is paying back, you know, money to the government. How should we be thinking about your visibility into stabilizing cash flow? You know, I know you've got ample liquidity, but, you know, $139 million of cash burn is something that we're watching. Just curious on your thoughts there. Yep. Thanks for the question. In the fourth quarter, we had a significant use of cash due to working capital needs. For instance, we paid back $35 million of CARES funding that we received in 2020. That was kind of a one-time in nature, which was the majority of the working capital needs in the fourth quarter. The momentum we had in 2021, 10 months of sequential occupancy growth, we believe that momentum and the rate increase in 2022, as well as the occupancy growth that we're seeing or project to see in 2022 will drive a sizable EBITDA growth as we've talked about. By the end of 2022, we expect to have significantly reduced our cash needs from the operations. Bottom line, cash flow and liquidity are certainly a priority, and we'll continue to take proactive steps as well as driving and executing on the core business. All right. Last, a quick follow-up from me, either for you or Kathy. Just thinking about your interest rate exposure, how should we be thinking about, you know, your, the exposure to variable rates and as we think about rates going up in the next few months? Our debt is 62% fixed and 38% variable. The average rate of our variable debt is low, 2.4%. If the 30-day rates increase by about 100 basis points, the annualized interest cost would be $15 million or so. Remember, we paid off our only high-interest rate loan in October and prepaid substantially all of our remaining 2022 maturities, which is saving several million dollars of interest expense. Currently, on a year-over-year basis, we expect relatively flat interest expense in 2022. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Brian. The next question comes from the line of Joanna Gajuk from Bank of America. Joanna, please go ahead. Hi, guys. This is Courtney Fondufe on the line for Joanna. Thanks for taking the question. I guess just the first question, you know, you guys gave a lot of really helpful labor commentary, and you were saying you made adjustments at the market level for the rates you were paying. What, you know, what was the underlying cost inflation that you saw when you made those adjustments? I guess, what are you expecting for 2022? Good morning, Courtney. It's good to hear from you. As we went through the labor rates, it varied by market and it varied by position. Certainly, as you would expect, we have seen more inflation in our nurses than our other positions. When you look at caregivers, med techs, CNAs, and dining staff, you've seen sort of more labor inflation there. I think we've seen more labor inflation at the hourly worker level than we have at the salaried worker level, but it has been something that we've paid attention to, and it's a pretty dynamic market. We're gonna continue to keep our finger on the pulse during 2022. We are gonna make adjustments as appropriate. Of course, we're gonna focus on the things that we can control outside of wages, which is really the culture, the career development, the learning opportunities, so that our associates can really live their best life as well. Okay, thanks. Super helpful. I guess, you know, on that line of rates, you know, you guys mentioned that you did introduce the rate increases in January and Q1. Did I hear correctly that you said you didn't get much pushback from residents? Could you speak to why? The one thing I will say is that our executive directors have done just an amazing job about talking to our residents about the rationale for the rate increase. Our residents care very much about the associates who support them and want them to be paid a fair wage. Given that a lot of the rate increases is driven by inflation and labor costs, that was obviously part of the explanation to our residents. We have not seen a material increase in attrition of our resident base as a result of the wage increase. That has been very positive. As you know, most of our in-place resident rate increases occurred in January, and we had to give notice to them in the fourth quarter of 2021. Okay, perfect. Super helpful. Last question from me, just, you know, one thing on the guide, you guys said you expect development CapEx to grow to $20 million. I think it was just $3 million in 2021. Just what, you know, what projects are you guys assuming in that guide? Well, quite honestly, we have a large pipeline of Program Max projects that redevelop our communities. Often, it's a conversion of units from assisted living to memory care or repositioning the community within the marketplace. There are a wide variety of projects that are teed up, not all of which we will get to in 2022. Got it. Thank you. The line of Ben Hendrix from RBC Capital Markets. Ben, please proceed. Thank you. Just a quick question back to the labor, and how do you expect that pace to continue through the first quarter? Yes. We had to get our net hiring to where we want it to be. Needless to say, we're making great progress and I'm incredibly proud of the work that the team is doing to attract, engage, develop, and retain all of our associates. Appreciate that. You can't offer like a percentage increase or otherwise in terms of magnitude? You know, it's in the hundreds that we are net positive in terms of hires, in the hundreds. Thank you very much. Thanks, Ben. I wanna thank you for your interest in Brookdale and for joining us this morning. This concludes our call. Thanks, Lauren. This concludes the call. Thank you. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.