Exclusive Interview: Insights from Emerest Studios’ CEO Josh Klein and COO Jack Bernath

Participants:

Video transcript:

Welcome back everybody! Welcome to our wonderful grand opening! I’m Lauren Collier, your host and here I am seated with the CEO and founder Josh Klein, and the COO of Emerest Jack Bernath. I’m so happy to have you both here!

Interviewer

It’s amazing!

Josh Klein

Welcome, congratulations! November 1st, opening day. It must feel really good. This is such a great facility and your mission is so fabulous. I’ll start with you, Josh. How did you decide? You’ve been friends for a long time. So, how did you say: “We’re going to do healthcare but we’re going to elevate it”?

Interviewer

So, it took time for us to come up with ideas but you mentioned the word “friendship” and I really want to expand on that. Jack and I have done this together from day one. I was fortunate enough to get introduced to Jack through his brother, and from day one, there was never an idea or a concept. Especially within the caring industry. Jack and I were not on the same page. There wasn’t any concept of what we were trying to accomplish in this space when we started in a little office which was a storefront, 1000 square feet.

Josh Klein

It was a small, small office.

Jack Bernath

Wait, where was that?

Interviewer

In Brooklyn, New York on a storefront. And Jack and I didn’t have an office, right?

Josh Klein

Right. We were actually working out of the car between different offices but we didn’t have our desks. Actually, it was like a small place because we were growing very fast.

Jack Bernath

But you had these ideas and you had this wonderful mission because you didn’t just want to do great healthcare and services. You wanted people to feel good about what they were doing and what you were offering. And I think that’s really wonderful. I really say bravo!

Interviewer

Thank you. And I will tell you that Jack and I the one of the real reasons why Jack and I have been successful in this business. Jack likes to really explain this well in a certain way and I know you’re going to laugh at what I’m gonna say now but first of all we finished eight thousand sentences. That is number one. We really do finish our sentences because when you really have the same mission. So, when we started doing Royal Care, Jack and I, Jack said: “We were in the field”, and sitting in the back office wasn’t an option. And when we went out to the communities, and to nursing homes, and to hospitals, and to doctor’s offices, Jack and I used to get patients that we wanted to provide home health care which is the paraprofessional care, as it’s called in the industry, that does the daily activities for elderly patients at home that just can’t do certain things: washing laundry, doing those their daily activities. And Jack and I have picked up patients from nursing homes many times over the years with our own hands in our own cars to put them in the car and take them home.

Josh Klein

I love that!

Interviewer

So, we never lost that mission. You’re asking about our mission? We never forgot what it feels like. And Jack and I have always been in patients homes to really get a feel and we never forget that we had a business to build but this is more than a business.

Josh Klein

More than a business. Our mission is taking care of patients. And we have started, as Josh said, with every little department in this company which has multiple departments to understand it. We did some of the HR, we wanted to understand what does it means the Home Health Aide’s side. Who is going to be these employees? What are they going to be doing for patients? We were doing the payroll. What does it mean to take care of getting people paid? Understanding what does it mean intaking a patient, getting a referral. For all these departments we were sitting for days, and months, and weeks, and years. We did learn and understand what does that business means. What is this particular business? And when we started this, we really understood that this is not just any kind of business out there.

Jack Bernath

Right.

Interviewer

We’re not selling boxes. We’re not selling cameras. We’re not a grocery store. Actually, we are dealing with the lives of the elderly population and we took that very very seriously. I got introduced to Josh through my brother. And I actually didn’t come from this industry. Josh has been in this industry for many years. His parents did healthcare for many years. But when we started and I got introduced to Josh, we were like talking for hours, and the passion was right there for me to understand where we’re going into. And we have worked very hard to understand what is this, and to start that line of business. And as we’re going to talk, you’ll understand where we ended up today’s day.

Jack Bernath

I know your passion and I always wonder how you got that passion. Did you have a personal experience? Because a lot of people don’t understand the importance of what you do and the importance of healthcare. If as your parent gets older, someone not feeling well, you don’t think about it, and then when it happens…

Interviewer

So, the answer is that Josh had is coming from that. And, unfortunately, in my family, my parents passed very young, they were sick and they had home care. And they had a hard time getting home care in those years. First of all, we used to live in rural areas where it’s very hard home find somebody, to find nurses, to find home health aides. In those days in the rural areas that kind of things happening. I had that passion but I never did that. But when we got into it, we merged all those little things together and made it as a good mission.

Jack Bernath

It was never something that we had to explain to each other why we want to get to an objective.

Josh Klein

Right.

Interviewer

There was no such a thing as there was never a concept and Jack and I, I mean, it’s 20 plus years, right?

Josh Klein

Right.

Jack Bernath

20 plus years not just do we talk every day besides that. And I’m glad that he’s using the word “friends”. We don’t just talk about business. And I think because it’s a caring business, there’s a lot of understanding, family dynamics, different family dynamics, different cultures. We’re both Orthodox Jews. We’re proud that Orthodox Jews make a difference in a space when you care and we’re proud that we are at the forefront and doing the right thing not just for our patients, but as well as our caregivers. And that is something that the utmost importance and it trickled down from everybody. And wherever we went, whenever we went to a meeting or people asked us on the street: “Oh, does he work for you?”. That terminology was never used. They work WITH us.

Josh Klein

Right.

Interviewer

They work with us.

Jack Bernath

And it starts with everybody, I mean the office staff and how Jack from an operational standpoint, the people in accounting love him and that’s a lot of money, the human resources department, but they look up to Jack and I’ve always felt that that’s part of it, that he didn’t have the opportunity to see his parents grow up at an older age, but he saw what was missing, he always brought that passion to the business and the two of us together were able to create what we were so blessed to create.

Josh Klein

It’s so great! Because you’re really elevating not only healthcare but your workers who are so important. And I know you have said they’re really not applauded as they should be in most other companies. Here I see what you do but I find that very interesting and you’re always working to better their lives as well as your client’s lives. You always thinking of new things like our studio here.

Interviewer

It goes hand by hand. And we’re going to talk about the Perks program and what we did because happy employee which comes into a patient’s home in the morning, obviously, they’ll treat the patient a lot differently.

Jack Bernath

Yeah.

Interviewer

When aid comes in the morning and is upset, they don’t get paid properly, they’re not appreciated, they don’t get extra perks, they don’t get extra stuff, they don’t get an extra smile when they come into an office, or on the phone, or proper customer service. They go to work in their frustrated life. There are a lot of single moms, people who can’t make ends needs. They’re doing this job. This is a very, very hard job. So, when they get like that in the morning, they get to a patient, it makes a lot of a difference and this is where we stand out differently than others and try to do. It’s a big big portion. When you look at home care, the patient and the employee are important on both sides and that is very, very important.

Jack Bernath

We can see it here because in our building we have some of your services. The girls get their hair, and guys, once in a while we see guys, and their nails done and it really does. Because I could see they feel good and like you’re saying when they go to visit one of our fabulous clients who aren’t feeling that great all the time, it’s a better dynamic.

Interviewer

They feel they were taken care of. It’s a chain reaction. Somebody took care of me, now I’m going to take care of my patient properly, of my client properly.

Jack Bernath

Absolutely, and that is so terrific, and also it’s terrific that you’re right here, in the Bronx. And I know that was very important to both of you, correct? Because you even said, we could have gone anywhere but we wanted to be here because we felt really welcomed here.

Interviewer

And there were multiple reasons why Jack and I decided to come here. The Bronx meant a lot to us. Jack and I used to come to the Bronx for years.

Josh Klein

And our patients, and a lot of the referral sources, we have worked very strongly. We always had that passion and people liked what they have seen in our company and who we are as operators. And they really wanted to work with us. So, right from the get-go as we were servicing the five boroughs, the Bronx was a very strong place. They welcomed us and they really understood what we want to do. And they were smart because, look, where the mission went and after all these years here we are and we’re delivering a product which nobody else does.

Jack Bernath

Nobody else, right.

Interviewer

And the Bronx to us is… Some people say that Staten Island is the forgotten borough but this is such a melting pot. And I think a very large of our population that serves the elderly, live in the Bronx. And we wanted to change that dynamic. Jack and I have always been, even when before we started our Perks program, if the industry paid $10 – we always managed to make sure that they get paid $12.

Josh Klein

Okay, right.

Interviewer

We have to make sure that we can pay. We’re business people but it’s a curing business, whatever has to be right.

Jack Bernath

But it’s also that you’re helping the workforce here. I mean, you’re adding to it and you’re wanting to keep the people you have. And I know that you on average, I think you told me, your healthcare worker will stay at least 10 years which is sort of unheard of.

Interviewer

The retention is unbelievable and they like the culture, they like what they see, they like what they get, they like what’s happening around here. So, as far as the workforce is concerned, I think you can never find somebody to say: “Oh, Royal Care. I’m leaving Royal Care”. It can be maybe because they got a job closer to home or things like that, but if someone has treated them badly or something like that, then no.

Jack Bernath

The fact that is so important to you both speaks volumes about why you are so successful.

Interviewer

And I want to just add in reference to the retention. Some people walk the walk, but Jack and I always talk the talk and we execute it. And the reason why we actually built a tangible building to showcase that. It’s also important to us that the longer a home health worker or caregiver is with a patient, the more value they can add by saying they picked up something, they’ve known the patient for a month, I don’t like the way they look, and we believe, talking about how we really Jack and I think they’re underpaid. There’s no question in our minds. Jack and I advocate continuously and find ways to really make sure that they get their do and we wanted to build something to showcase that and execute on retention. So, they can bring us back enormous value to have patients better outcomes. So, they can live happier and healthier lives at home.

Josh Klein

And that goes obviously to the Emerest Connect thing of when it comes to savings it, comes a lot of savings. If you have people who are there for a longer time the caregivers are taking care of them better, the patients feel better, right? You have better quality, patients don’t end up going to the hospital so much. And that goes into the Emerest Connect product which we have launched. This is an amazing product where we have the clinical side and the social side. Where they really keep very healthy at home and that’s tremendous. So, our continuum starts with the employees which are the U@Perks, and keeping the employees happy having longer retention, getting in on the Emerest Connect side, on the patient side, to having them healthier at home. It’s just dollars and cents across the board which is being tremendously saved with these programs.

Jack Bernath

And people want to stay home but I mean, if there is some kind of emergency – you have people that can help them.

Interviewer

We have our own ambulance. So, one of the real concepts is that the baby boomers are coming up.

Josh Klein

Right, yeah.

Interviewer

And we are coming into the age of needing care and we don’t just want to treat them when they’re sick, we want to prevent them from getting worse, right? So, the rising risk as it’s called, and that’s what we wanted to usher in technology and innovation. We’re sitting in an innovative product.

Josh Klein

And we had it too. There’s no way in the world and there are people who have tried for years to say: “We can do it without technology”, but we believe and we’re seeing it now that this technology will bring us that thing. That connection is technology as you can see, as you’re hosting these people on a daily basis.

Jack Bernath

Right over here. Yes, they’re watching.

Josh Klein

They’re amazing by people not being lonely at home, people engaging, people doing all these different things on the social side, people taking care of themselves clinically and having all those services, as you said, when it comes to small things not to have, to leave the house and just go to ER or an emergency room or go to a hospital for nonsense and picking up all these different bacterias and stuff for no good reason. All those services are being done at home and it’s amazing services. So, we are very excited about where we have gotten. As you said, we started 20 plus years ago. Started with non-skilled home care in New York and branched out tremendously different multiple states, in the certified space for the last 8 years already and expanded to all boroughs in New York looking for expansion in different states, in the certified space. And having this Emerest Connect product which is working tremendously and working wonders in New York and looking to expand in all the states.

Jack Bernath

So wonderful! And not only English but Spanish too.

Interviewer

All languages eventually. Obviously, every language is the way we are doing it. Just to give you an idea of when we started, and the unskill as well. What we realized was there’s no way we can take on a group of people we can take on a language without going all out. On that language meaning, we don’t have like a language line, right? There’s no language line. We have started years ago. Remember, we started in the Chinese Community, right? We went all out. It wasn’t only that we had a coordinator who would coordinate because we wanted to save money. If we went into that line of business, population for a better phrase, we went all out on that. Meaning we had payroll, HR, recruitment, everything in that language. It costed us a lot more, obviously but we had to do it, as we said, in the beginning. We do what’s right for the patient, and for the employees, and the outcomes are great afterward.

Jack Bernath

The proof is here we are. And anything that’s coming up, I know you have so many ideas.

Interviewer

I think we’re gonna look at Josh. He comes up with these ideas.

Jack Bernath

I just say both of you guys are so fabulous. I mean, when you come to the studio, you have these great smiles on your faces and you’re so excited about what you’re doing. That it is infectious.

Interviewer

If you don’t have a passion for what to do… You know that thing. If you like what you do, you don’t work a day in your life. But we want to work and we like to work.

Jack Bernath

And we like to build. People have mission statements and that’s very nice but it’s a statement by us that is executing that mission.

Josh Klein

It can’t just be on the wall. It has to be executed.

Jack Bernath

Absolutely. And we lead, Jack and I, lead by example. I think I’m blessed to have a vision but I couldn’t do anything without Jack. This means I can have a vision from here to tomorrow but if I don’t have a partner who a not just see it together with me. Like I always say: “I dream it, he builds it”.

Josh Klein

That’s talent, exactly. Do you see how he can read my mind? That’s kind of talent. He started that idea and I’m thinking to myself: maybe yes, maybe not, I shouldn’t shut it down and by the end of the day he gets it.

Jack Bernath

That goes back to why we have a mutual vision and a mission. And we really care what we do and we’re very proud. I think that one thing that we feel that we’re different from is never going away doing the right thing. We have an open-door policy, people come to us. There are so many things that we believe that we are family. When we hire somebody in our continuum and everywhere, it’s very easy to hire, it’s our responsibility.

Josh Klein

We’re very hard in hiring and that goes back to hiring. Meaning we don’t just hire by as being so big. Usually, companies are okay. We need that position. Let’s get it and see if it works out. If not, we’ll move on and they move on and turn around. When we take somebody, we really take it on as a responsibility. It’s a person who is coming in training, getting it, having people, having families. We take on the responsibility and we really take it very seriously.

Jack Bernath

That’s great.

Interviewer

And that’s why we really see a great retention. Even in office employees, not only on the aide’s side.

Jack Bernath

The average person that works with us. Not just caregivers. Our numbers are absolutely amazing. But even the people who hold positions have been working with us for more than 12 years.

Josh Klein

That is really fantastic.

Interviewer

And that’s a testament to what Jack and I have created, and that feeling of confidence that when we hire someone, they’re coming from another job, and just saying “Yes” is never an easy answer, as we see that they don’t just stay in work, how are they going to grow within the company. No one wants to stay stagnant, everyone wants to feel like their work will improve. No one wants to stay in their place. Jack and I always talk about this, people want our seats, seats.

Josh Klein

We’re willing to get it!

Jack Bernath

But we have administrators, and director intake that grew out. Sure, they couldn’t take Jack and my seats but we placed them in CEO positions.

Josh Klein

That is true.

Jack Bernath

That’s terrific!

Interviewer

We personally put them in.

Josh Klein

We had people who started and became like a director of intake.

Jack Bernath

Wow!

Interviewer

Right, director of intake. Our administrators, they became CEOs.

Jack Bernath

And we placed them in places that we were comfortable with and still are close to them. I’m referring to so many that we made sure that they can elevate them. It’s not about us.

Josh Klein

We have people who open their own businesses out of us. And we’re gladly helping them with the right things.

Jack Bernath

We love that!

Josh Klein

And it all started from your friendship, and it’s grown. Well, any final words for everybody?

Interviewer

So, Jack and I are super proud that this is that we’re showcasing essentially our accomplishments and our advancement and executing our innovation from Royal Care to the thousands of home health aides and the patients that trust us to us being their employer and giving us the opportunity to care for them at home. We are always going to continue to advance their lives, home health aides’ lives. We’re going to make sure that they feel elevated, they feel special in what they do. We will always advocate for everyone of all our employees to continue doing so. And this is just the beginning.

Josh Klein

Jack, what’s your final word there?

Interviewer

This is just the beginning. I mean, this technology is just the beginning. A lot is coming. There’s a lot still to add to, it’s the beginning of that. And we’re looking forward to making this a grand success, and we want to say “Thank you” to all of our employees and to all of our people who are bringing out the success.

Jack Bernath

Everyone, every single one of them has an equal amount of value that they brought to the table, every single one. And we’re so grateful to everyone, and we’re so proud of everyone. And we’re so proud of the studio people here who deal with this behind the scenes and always with a smile and understanding our vision. If I start names I’ll never end but everybody has an equal amount and we’re so grateful that people see our mission and vision together. Thank you!

Josh Klein

Thank you very much!

Jack Bernath

Wonderful! So, thank you so much for all that you do and I think these companies, they’re so fantastic. I wish you both nothing but the very best for years and years to come. I hope you continue our show too.

Interviewer

Absolutely.

Jack Bernath

Absolutely.

Josh Klein