Happy Holidays,   For many Plastic Surgery Residents and Fellows this coming  year will mean the end of your training. Congratulations, you will have endured one of the roughest and toughest educational paths for any career. However, have you taken the time to protect yourself from harm? In other words have you made sure that your ability to earn an income in your specialty is properly protected? Believe it or not your ability to earn an income in your specialty can be valued anywhere from $5 to $15 million, making your skill set your number one asset. If you haven’t considered how much is at stake, its not too late. Purchasing Disability Insurance during residency or fellowship even in its waning days has significant advantages to waiting in private practice. A few of the reasons why this is so important are as follows: Rates are usually significantly Cheaper during residency than in the private sector. Uni-sex rates for women are still available through most residency programs[...]

By now, you know that the reason you as a specialist in Gastroenterology that you need disability insurance is to protect your income because of an injury or sickness that prevents you from earning one as a physician.  The potential loss is upwards of  $10 million. Needless to say that is lot of money, which is why insurance carriers or companies have special protections for themselves to limit the risk.  They do this with exclusions and limitations.  This enables the provider to dismiss a claim under certain circumstances. Each company has its own defined exclusions therefor it is imperative that you as a buyer thoroughly understand your policy. Although there are definite distinctions between companies on exclusions, some are universal within the Insurance Industry. The most common are injuries or disabilities caused by illegal felonious activities, those that are self-inflicted, and acts of war. Just like any exclusion, the purpose of these standard limitations serves to limit or[...]

  The practice of medicine has come a long way in the last 100 yrs.  Just look at the BBC series “Quacks” and that should give you some point of reference.  The development of specialties and sub-specialties has created entirely new ways of practicing.  Take Anesthesiology for example, a specialty that was limited to primitive drugs at the turn of the 19th century has spawned numerous sub specialties like Pain Management, Surgical Anesthesia and the like.  Each of which take years of training to begin practicing professionally.  Considering all that you have invested in your career, it is crucial that you cover yourself from the financial impact of a disability with a specialty specific, own occupation disability insurance policy.  You need to understand how this disability policy will work for you in your specialty. All policies are unique to their respective owner.  Your personal disability income protection policy will be written to cover your duties for instance of y[...]

Disability Income Protection coverage is important to you as a specialist in Emergency Medicine, Anesthesia, Otolaryngology, Neuro Surgery and all of the other medical specialties.  You know that it provides you an income stream if you become disabled, but unless you already have a solid financial foundation and substantial savings it will most likely not cover your expenses if your disability is long term.  This is when we add a rider called the Cost of Living Benefit (COLA). The Cost of Living Benefit or COLA as it is call in the industry is a product that offsets the impact of inflation on the benefits of your policy.  A COLA rider will adjust for inflation annually after 365 days of disability and every year thereafter.  It is customarily calculated by the consumer price index. The Consumer Price Index calculates the increase in cost of goods most commonly purchased by consumers from year to year. In other words, it puts a figure to the inflation you incur for typical purcha[...]

Right now we are being are in the midst of one of the greatest national disasters our country has ever known. At this point the only news coverage other than local that is relevant is surrounding the Hurricane and its aftermath in Texas. It is at times like these that always gets me thinking about the people in our lives and how very fortunate we are to have protected them and ourselves from the financial disasters that happen from just such an incident due to the lack of planning. This also gives me pause to consider those that we have chosen to represent us, such as bankers, attorneys, accountants or our financial advisors. When was the last time you sat down and talked with them about your particular situation? Chances are it has been a while and perhaps you are waiting for them to call. Let’s look at this for a moment. We all think that our personal issues are the most important because they are ours don’t we? However, the sad truth is that unless we make them just as important [...]