Physician Income and Asset Protection
Make sure your medical history doesn't work against your ability to protect your income and assets
A physician's 20-30 year career enables them to earn a significant return on their investment of time, energy, and responsibility in their profession in the form of an annual six-figure income. The return on their investment can be disrupted by three major causes: accidents and/or illnesses, premature death or malpractice lawsuits. In light of this, physicians should make arrangements to protect their income and assets before it is too late due to their medical history.
While much of the attention in the medical field is on managing and improving a patient's medical history, what about the doctors who are caring for them? Does it really matter what is in a physician's medical history and what does this have to do with a physician's income?
These may seem to be unusual questions to be asking, but they are relevant. Here's why...
Physicians routinely find out that their medical history contains information that prevents, limits or increases the cost of their ability to protect their income and assets.
Why does this happen?
When a doctor is the patient and goes in for an appointment, information gets added to their medical file by their attending physician that is not necessarily intended to be shared with the doctor/patient. The notes added to the medical file are more for the benefit of the attending physician to keep clear organized records. This makes perfect sense because physicians are required to keep track of thousands of patients.
What ends up happening, though, is that during the process of setting up an income and asset protection plan with specialty specific disability and life insurance, that same information in the medical history is reviewed by the insurance company who provides the protection.
The notes in the medical file are the very thing that can cause red flags to the insurance company unbeknownst to the applicant. Unfortunately, the red flags can cause the applicant to be denied, have limitations, exclusions or experience rate increases of 50% or more.
What should physicians do to avoid this from happening to them?
The only way to make sure physicians have a shot at being able to secure the best kind of specialty specific disability and life insurance at the best rates is to apply before anything new gets added to their medical history that could harm them.
This is not to say that a physician should delay necessary medical care before applying. That would be taking this principle to an extreme.
It is recommended to avoid the following if possible:
- Scheduling and/or completing any appointments for routine medical care
- Getting sick or having an accident
- Scheduling and/or completing any appointment for a clinical investigation of troubling symptoms
- Starting your family - pregnancy complications are excluded when currently pregnant and excluded moving forward if complications in past pregnancies.
- Scheduling any foreign travel
- Taking up flying lessons
- Taking up any new, potentially hazardous avocations
- Starting any sort of wellness program administered by a chiropractor
- Having any elective procedure performed, including Lasik
- Becoming stressed by your workload that you feel the need to reach out for an Rx - even if you know it would be prescribed for just a short while
- Filing bankruptcy for any reason, no matter how understandable or justified the circumstance
This list does not give much wiggle room, does it? That is why it is best to get insurance planning started before it is too late. Procrastination can lead to serious consequences.
As our advisory group travels across the U.S. speaking at universities, medical centers and medical schools, we often hear from residents, fellows and faculty that their schedule or finances do not have any room to start the process. What they don't realize is how simple, quick and affordable the plans can be, especially when working with specialized advisors.
In conclusion, physicians should make sure they protect their income with specialty specific disability and life insurance before notes taken during routine medical care limit their ability to get high quality and comprehensive plans.
Need more information on this subject?
Residents, fellows and practicing physicians use our advisory group for insurance research and unbiased counsel.
If you or your colleagues would like to find out what income and asset protection options are available for your age and specialty, please don't hesitate to contact us. There is no cost for the research.
Those who want to start the research process and have a few minutes to complete a web form can go to the following page to do so:
Once the form is completed, an advisor will schedule a time to present the results of their research.
As always, if you have questions or want to discuss practice management, please don't hesitate to contact our office.
More Practice Management Tips are available via the link below:
For other resources, go to physician contract review and negotiation.
