recommended website for physician's financial planning

[drpainfree]

articles, discussion, forum on tax planning, insurance, asset protection, retirement, etc, more specifically for physicians.

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[southerndoc]

Although it is not physician specific, IMO it is the best financial site on the web.

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

I second the Bogleheads board (you might see a familiar screen name there).

 

[tinkerbelle]

I've been reading about asset protection planning and find a lot of the online websites contradictory. However, I do like this website:

http://www.rjmintz.com/
-> On the right, there is info under the "asset protection law library"

Although I normally don't trust law firm websites, I like the information in the law library and found his books to be useful in helping me understand all this legal mumbo jumbo ("Asset Protection for Physicians and High-Risk Business Owners" and "Legal Guide to Asset Protection Planning"). The books can be read online for free as pdfs.

Residencies should be required to teach us about asset protection and financial planning. I doubt many of my classmates have even heard of asset protection.

-tink

 

[FutureCTDoc]

For finance a good advisor from a reputable company is the best choice. Almost all major banks offer PWM (Private Wealth Management) for high net worth clients or private banking for accounts with $1,000,000 or more. You may not be there yet but eventually that may be a concern. Getting an advisor from a Bank of America Merrill Lynch or Charles Schwaab sort of place may be a good choice. Get an attorney and draft a strong will.

 

[blanche]

I second the Bogleheads board (you might see a familiar screen name there).

another vote for bogleheads. the FAQs are a good place to start. will give a good start on educating yourself on how to handle finances and approach money

 

[touchadream]

I've been reading about asset protection planning and find a lot of the online websites contradictory. However, I do like this website:

http://www.rjmintz.com/
-> On the right, there is info under the "asset protection law library"

Although I normally don't trust law firm websites, I like the information in the law library and found his books to be useful in helping me understand all this legal mumbo jumbo ("Asset Protection for Physicians and High-Risk Business Owners" and "Legal Guide to Asset Protection Planning"). The books can be read online for free as pdfs.

Residencies should be required to teach us about asset protection and financial planning. I doubt many of my classmates have even heard of asset protection.

-tink

Whoa now--you don't trust law firm websites? Whyever not? Can you explain this please? If you find the words "legal mumbo jumbo" appropriate, think about what others consider "medical mumbo jumbo." Let's be fair, both professions have their share of gray areas--lawyers aren't magicians, neither are doctors, right? Having said that, the legal system is pretty awful. Health care, however, is ...???

Your comment that "residencies should be required to teach us about asset protection and financial planning" is prescient, but I can tell you that clinical programs are highly resistant.

I spent years trying to find a financial advisor for myself (a tax lawyer) and my husband (a radiologogist) and finally became one because I found the industry so inadequate in serving medical/professional families. Actually inadequate is kind. So WHO teaches you matters greatly, and what they teach matters greatly. There are many people who have a little bit of information, but bringing together the variety of specialists needed to get a doctor on the right track and keep it that way is a long term project. Local residency programs I have offered to teach (for free) greet me with insulting suspicion, although I have taught law school, college, graduate school and CME. I believe this is because when it has been occasionally tried in CME, a friend or banker or advisor of a doctor will gain access to the CME inner sanctum and in flagrant violation of all of its purposes, use the opportunity to sell his/her products. The education director gets complaints, the doctors are angry, and the chance a legitimate program will have a chance is diminished from the bad experience.

Having said that, what exactly do you want to learn about?
How to protect your assets from creditors, presumably malpractice creditors? Others?
What else? What do you need/want to know about financial planning?
Or do you feel you don't know what you don't know?

I respect your desire to learn about asset protection but this is interwoven into the retirement and estate planning laws and systems, as well as with life insurance, and the legal structures chosen to hold your personal investments, such as captive insurance companies. Not a short learning curve. And then, they change it. Its why WE have job security, too. Love to hear your further comments. HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

 

[mx_599]

i am glad this thread was revitalized, keep it coming

 

[touchadream]

www.finra.org not doctor specific, only investment specific, a great site--for example, look at the list of "credentials" for financial advice and note how many designations your "advisor" can just pay for, without any education, testing or validation, kind of shocking that your 7th grader can advertise him/herself as a an investment analyst... I know of a couple of doctor-specific ones that are ok, will find and post. This is guarded information, though so not going to be free, or will need a lot of prerequisites to understand.

 

[touchadream]

I've been reading about asset protection planning and find a lot of the online websites contradictory. However, I do like this website:

http://www.rjmintz.com/
-> On the right, there is info under the "asset protection law library"

Although I normally don't trust law firm websites, I like the information in the law library and found his books to be useful in helping me understand all this legal mumbo jumbo ("Asset Protection for Physicians and High-Risk Business Owners" and "Legal Guide to Asset Protection Planning"). The books can be read online for free as pdfs.

Residencies should be required to teach us about asset protection and financial planning. I doubt many of my classmates have even heard of asset protection.

-tink

www.medicaljustice.com

 

[touchadream]

For finance a good advisor from a reputable company is the best choice. Almost all major banks offer PWM (Private Wealth Management) for high net worth clients or private banking for accounts with $1,000,000 or more. You may not be there yet but eventually that may be a concern. Getting an advisor from a Bank of America Merrill Lynch or Charles Schwaab sort of place may be a good choice. Get an attorney and draft a strong will.

FYI, there are two types of Series 7 licensed broker reps(the person) and broker-dealers(the company). The traditional "wirehouses", like Merrill Lynch, who have captive advisors selling their own products, and the independents (First Allied Securities-mine, LPL Financial) broker-dealers where an independent advisor (on a 1099, not an employee) can park a license, since you have to have a broker-dealer to sell securities legally. Traditionally, a Series 7 representative made money and still does, by trading, on commissions for you. This is a dying model, for a lot of reasons. The series 65 license, is an "investment advisory representative". What is the difference? BIG. The IAR unlike the traditional rep, is required to use a standard of care he/she would use in dealing with his/her own money. Series 7, not so. There is a big debate about reform in the industry. Having said that, it would behoove you to know which licenses your advisor holds (both are better) and I would caution you that the independent model will permit your advisor to look for products throughout the industry and from many companies, which might suit you, whereas the Merrill Lynch rep will more likely be told what to sell you. Same with insurance, for example, Northwestern Mutual, who loves to target the med student resident market, so does Mass Mutual, each of whom own their agents (employees), so when you get a policy from them, its their brand or nothing. I can't help but think independent is better in both investing and insurance. I don't want my doctor tied to ONE pharma company, or ONE device company, do I?

How do banks feed into this? Simple, they feed you to their own financial advisors--oops, pardon me, I meant to say "Wealth Managers" and share the take, but discretely. By all means use a private banker for doctors, but don't accept higher fees and lower interest from them. www.bankrate.com The advantage to a good local private banker is convenience and service. You should have someone to handle your problems quickly and with one phone call. You DON'T need a million dollars to get this kind of service, just an MD or DO or DDS after your name. Use it. The best bankers know not to waste your time. If they can get something for you, they will do it quickly and seamlessly, such as a loan, and if they can't, they should tell you up front, and apologize!

Financial advisors for doctors? FEW and FAR BETWEEN. Lots of them SAY they are specialists, which means they WANT you, but it doesn't mean they know what you need. I researched the sites and even personally visited some of the "best financial advisors for doctors" listed in Medical Economics each year, and guess what? They only do one thing: take your money and invest it. Not any different than any other financial "advisor", oh, er, I mean "wealth manager." New terminology, same old sales technique. I can safely say this because, in the interest of full disclosure I hold all of the licenses above, plus a tax law degree, and most importantly I am married to a doctor, so you know my motivation. Do I know more than the "best financial advisors for doctors"? Yes, a lot more. No investment allocation achieving diversification into every investment in the world can mitigate your tax burden. So any wealth manager who isn't first addressing taxes doesn't "get" your economic life cycle, and doesn't have the education or the inclination to get it because he/she will simply tell you how to invest what you have. You need someone to teach you how to KEEP MORE OF WHAT YOU MAKE. Making money on dollars you didn't know you could keep is a lot less stressful than trying to make up by investing the hundreds of thousands you overpay in tax--this actually becomes more than a million or two over your career. Doctors have several uniuqe financial problems: Excessive risk (investment risk they take to try to 'catch up' after years of low earnings, asset risk--people sue you more, reglulatory risk, etc.; Excessive losses (to the unnecessary overpayment of taxes, unnecessary investment losses, losses due to lack of compounding for as many years as other workers); Social pressure to live beyond your means, and the pressure of delayed gratification to make you want this, both of which result in high visibility to the very bankers, realtors, wealth managers, financial advisors, business partners, who will target your money; and Poor defensive strategy, because you are too busy, not interested (you didn't go into finance or tax law, on purpose), but arrogant (I apologize for generalizing) since you know you are smart enough to have studied these things, so you think you can now do it yourself even though you don't have the time to catch up or keep up without compromising your career and probably your family or personal life. Your financial education should start with an understanding that all doctors are seen as fresh meat by our industry. That does not mean that you cannot find professionals who behave ethically and WILL increase your wealth using knowledge and education you cannot duplicate without them.

 

[flipmd]

So WHERE do I find these advisers who (like you) specialize in taking care of physician's money? How about all those "financial planning seminars" I go to during residency for (I'll admit) the free food, do I trust those individuals?

I'm starting from scratch here. I don't know what I don't know.

 

[touchadream]

So WHERE do I find these advisers who (like you) specialize in taking care of physician's money? How about all those "financial planning seminars" I go to during residency for (I'll admit) the free food, do I trust those individuals?

I'm starting from scratch here. I don't know what I don't know.

Excellent question. I found a firm by research. It was recommended by a surgeon I knew socially (risky), but like many recommendations I checked it out by flying to California and attending a full day meeting, speaking with the CEO, CFO and several of their advisors. Then I went home, made calls, ran the numbers, researched the tax code and cases, etc. By the time I finished doing my own due diligence research on their recommendations, I decided they had a great tax planning platform ideally suited for doctors. That didn't mean that every advisor doing it was as conservative as they should have been. It didn't mean they each understood the issues, but I felt I did since I had practiced as a tax attorney, even to the point of defending criminal tax cases, so I knew how to be careful. By the time I understood the thing, I was good enough to do it, and I saw better ways to do part of it, so I became an advisor myself. This, after 25 years of being married to a radiologist, tryin to protect him (and me) from the predatory practices of "advisors" who only know their own little thing (eg,retail universal life insurance). There are times when people like us might want to have universal life insurance, but if the premiums could be DEDUCTIBLE, well, now you should be talking to doctors. So, I always say, if your financial advisor isn't talking FIRST about what you can do DEDUCTIBLY, he/she doesn't really know doctors finances. So now your field of choices is greatly narrowed down. Like you, in medicine, can find out who to go to with a serious medical problem, I can find out who to go to with a finance or tax problem. Its the intense networking we do, you in the hospital, and me in the everyday practice of tax avoidance and investment savings. So PM me and I will send you some names, but, of course, none are quite as good as I am! My biggest frustration is one you have identified so perfectly accurately. You don't know what you don't know. That is brilliant. If more doctors took this honest approach, there could be bigger retirements all over the place. So, for example, there is an SDN member, if I recall his name is something like MDTaxes, and he writes some good posts, and asks good honest questions, like "what have I missed?", and when I think, well, you missed the best part because you stopped when you got through the normal answers. So he talked about the various IRAs, 401Ks, and just mentioned that there are some "pension" planning opportunities which are more complicated and require expertise. That is the clue right there. Those are the plans I am most familiar with, since the IRA phases out so quickly from income caps, as does the traditional "off-the-shelf" 401K. Doctors need the customized plans. You need to be looking for LEGAL, LEGITIMATE, LARGE deductions and these will start with the way you structure your practice. Doing the structures correctly and providing the right benefits can make a difference of a million or more in your retirement account. So, very few doctors know what they don't know, you are just honest enough to admit it. For every doctor here who tries to say, hey, investing is easy, I have a good accountant, I can write off my cell phone and car, I know what I am doing...well, its sad to me. The medical profession profoundly overpays taxes. But they are smart and think they are smarter than, well, say, a tax attorney like me! We could argue and test that all day, but bottom line is bottom line, the dollars tell the truth. Doctors don't share their money information, they consider it distastedul, impolite, and are insecure about it. They do NOT tend to be "high net worth", but rather high debt, high income, and highly taxed. Of course, a few get lucky with practice buy outs, or unfairly high reimbursement quirks in the system, such as oncology codes, but then they don't know how to protect those high incomes from taxes, so the government gets too big a cut, year after year. PM me for names, glad to share.

As to the seminars, they are all over the place. I can't get the local GME office to let me talk to residents, although I have taught college, law school, and CME. So I have occasionally talked to residents at local restaurant, but would prefer to do it in academic setting, as I really don't need to "sell." Still, how are they going to find out? As to can you trust those individuals? Ask the questions above, do not be afraid to politely ask very tough questions. For example, "What do you see as the biggest challenge for doctors' financially? How can your firm help me solve it?" "What other issues should I be considering?" "Who is your competition?" "Do you own this ______ you are offering me?" "Tell me about your education and background", etc. Sales is a profession, a very sophisticated profession, so they can definitely entice you. Your job is to sort through to the facts that matter to you. I am going to suggest that tax is the key. Even if an advisor is not a tax expert, that person should be primary on his/her team and you should be assured that you will have tax law support from his financial firm or their vendors or partners. Hope this helps.

 

[TexasPhysician]

The medical profession profoundly overpays taxes. But they are smart and think they are smarter than, well, say, a tax attorney like me! We could argue and test that all day, but bottom line is bottom line, the dollars tell the truth. Doctors don't share their money information, they consider it distastedul, impolite, and are insecure about it. They do NOT tend to be "high net worth", but rather high debt, high income, and highly taxed.

You are exactly right that physicians overpay taxes. They are very afraid to take risks. Physicians for the most part play it very safe and prefer to "donate" their money to the government. There is a huge lack of financial knowledge.

One physician friend of mine used a "family friend" as a realtor who had 0 experience. You don't even want to know the trouble that resulted from that.

Another physician friend said that he "didn't need to invest" because he makes "enough money".

It is really sad that some people take no interest in maximizing the money they rightfully earned. Physicians aren't the only ones either.

Everyone should be more actively involved in continually learning more about finances.