The FinancialMD Show

Ep 013 - Finding Locums Jobs

Summary:
Looking For Locums Work [0:02:35]
Trevor’s Long-Term Goals And Aspirations Career-Wise [0:07:24]
When Finding Jobs – Be Positive, Know Your Worth, Don’t Put Down Somebody Else [0:12:36]
Burntout To Badass – Honing In On Your Priorities [0:19:57]
There’s Something Called Geographic Arbitrage [0:24:23]
The Secret Sauce If You Are Doing Locums – Call Up Hospitals And Ask For the Physician Recruiter [0:030:03]
Locums Interview Process Vs Typical Interview Process [0:33:20]
When You Get A Job Offer, What’s Next? [0:37:26]
Very Important – Read All Your Contracts [0:41:44]
On Getting Paid – Do Some Simple Math [0:43:50]
 
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board-certified ophthalmologist with a full-time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
Jon: Welcome everybody to Episode 16 of the Financial MD Show. Here, Trevor and I, figured out that something interesting to talk about with residents and fellows that are nearing the end of their training is finding work and, more specifically today, we’re going to talk about finding locums work. This can be an extremely lucrative type of work but has pros and cons in both direction – from taxes to scheduling to how do you find the work and how permanent or temporary is the work. Dr. Smith has some recommendations and some experience, so listen up. Subscribe on Google, Apple, and Spotify, and leave a rating in, if you don’t mind. Here’s the show:
 
Jon: Anything in your mind financially?
 
Trevor: Financially? I’m paying the bills; paying those student loans off as soon as possible so I can make completely unbiased decisions about my life and be free. You know what I mean?
 
Jon: Yeah.
 
Trevor: That sounds good, yeah, which is good. I think that’s realistic this year. But yeah, that’s kind of hyper. That’s a little, you know, egocentric. That’s what I’m thinking about financially.
 
Jon: Let’s go about locum work or being an independent contractor as a physician.
 
Trevor: We probably have not although I have to say I haven’t really done it yet so probably it would be good to down the backburner.
 
Jon: Okay.
 
Trevor: I could talk about…
 
Jon: Looking for locum work.
 
Looking For Locums Work [0:02:35]
 
Trevor: Yeah, looking for locum work. Yeah, definitely. Looking for locums is highly dependent on your subspecialty – that’s one thing I’ve learned. I was talking to somebody the other day and they’re like, hey, how’s the job search going, are you still thinking maybe start your own practice or whatever, and I was like no, I’m kind of putting that on the backburner. What about locums? And I said, yeah. They’re like, yeah, there’s probably lots of those jobs. Well, it really depends. She knew somebody that was an anesthesiologist and they had done locums basically their entire life – 1099 all the time – hopping around, and typically if you do it your whole career, you do end up doing longer stints too like 9 years here or 10 years there. But, regardless, in anesthesiology, it’s a lot more common and it sort of just in and out work already. But other clinical work, it’s a bit less count. Just to characterize how many I’ve seen while keeping my ears open for opportunities over the last year. I’ve only seen like six-ish come up and you know that they’re really legitimate opportunities especially if you signed up for multiple locums companies. They’ll all email you if there’s one that’s really broader or really looking for something. So, if you’re counting those plus like one or two extra, there’s only been about six that I’ve seen for ophthalmology in the last year. So they are not incredibly common.
 
Jon: Is it more common with other specialties, do you think?
 
Trevor: Yeah, if you can plug in and out really easily then it’s fine and then the more hospital-based it is, it seems like the more likely because they can credential you. Basically, they have to set you up to be able to get paid through the insurance and they can kind of, I think, my understanding is that like a radiologist who’s sitting in a dark room can just show up and work 8 to 5 or whatever just for chest x-rays and they can just filter. If you’re not credentialed with all of them, you’re at least going to be credentialed for Medicare which a ton of people will have.
 
Jon: Oh sure.
 
Trevor: They could have you to see those patients. They can filter that stuff.
 
Jon: Or I wonder if they can float you for a while until you get credentialed too.
 
Trevor: There is some of that. They can. If you’re seeing patients that you’re not credentialed with, though, the hospital and you will not; basically, they’re paying you a daily rate but they’ll eat the cost of you interpreting the things that you want credentialed for. So maybe they’ll eat the cost for that a little bit. Medicare is cool because you can get signed up pretty fast. They’ll backdate your payments up to 3 months. Like if someone’s opening their own practice, the first one they can get oftentimes is Medicare and maybe some private payers, but the private payers tend to take longer like up to three months, six months, or 12 months, depending on certain part of the country. As far as credentialing goes, some parts are so bad as to say that you couldn’t get it even within up to 12 months because they’ll just close off who they’re willing to credential. So they’ll have cameras it’s called but closed something. So like you could get it if you wanted to and it’s just like we’ll let you know when we’re starting to bring in new providers and you can’t get on unless they open it back up.
 
Jon: This is déjà vu.
 
Trevor: It’s crazy.
 
Jon: When I was a therapist, I went through some of that because I had to get credentialed for insurance companies and when I was doing it, there were a couple that were closed at the time to therapists and certain areas or whatever and so I remember that. I remember getting – yeah, Medicare was pretty easy to see. There are a couple other like – I never got credentialed with Blue Cross. I wasn’t doing it that long, just two or three years, but I would have eventually but it was just like you didn’t and then you started getting enough patients through the other carriers and it was just like it was fine. I wasn’t going to hustle too much on that but yeah I remember that process.
 
Trevor: Yeah. And Medicare, it depends about like they’re pretty good about paying and it’s really the private payers that can be a little bit more difficult.
 
Jon: So when it comes to locum work then – I don’t know when our last – our listeners knew, you were working maybe, maybe not but can you bring our listeners up to speed a little bit about what you’ve been doing, what’s your mindset behind the locum work; how does it fit into your long-term goals, aspirations, career trajectory.
 
Trevor’s Long-Term Goals And Aspirations Career-Wise [0:07:24]
 
Trevor: I started looking at locums for the first time a year ago during coronavirus. I was in practice then – it wasn’t a good fit – and I started looking into right now at the time of recording – it’s mid-April – and I was starting to look pretty right around the same time a year ago. So I started looking knowing that I kind of thought I knew what I wanted in the next practice as I’m a young associate and I knew some of the things I didn’t want and you kind of collect those a little bit easier than you collect what you do want. The things that you do want tend to be a little more vague is another thing what I’ve realized so you do want good ethics, you want to have patient priority, and these are not just talking points. It’s legitimately like what are you going to do this for if you’re not doing it for a couple, you know, those important reasons, just foundational.
 
Jon: Right.
 
Trevor: And then you want to also have a good business. If you’re looking at private practice, you’re looking at the business factor too because that should be one of the reasons you’re involved in private practice or if there’s not an academic place around it. Academics will take care of some of many of those details. If you don’t really care how much you make, there’s certainly an easier way to find the ethics and the quality of patient care because you’re going to have more resources at the university, too.
 
Jon: Absolutely.
 
Trevor: So, anyway, I was looking at locums because I thought it’d be a good, transitionary period. So I look at either – I didn’t know any of the ropes for building a practice – and I was just preparing to read books and realizing like, holy smokes, there’s a lot that goes into it. Anybody who’s in solo practice like that’s impressive. It’s a lot to undertake just to get the ball rolling and then you’ve got the stress and the pressure of succeeding or failing or how am I going to find patients and what’s the timeline knowing you’re going to potentially even lose money for a year or two. It’s such a significant decision so I have so much respect for people that have done that. And because they’ve been through a lot, they have a lot to pass on, a lot that they’ve learned and they enjoy sharing it with kind of the next generation. They really believe in that model. So kind of dug into that and was thinking, okay, solo is like a six-month runway from when you decide to do it. Six months is a very safe amount. If you’re really, really going after it, you can do it in like four, maybe. So I was looking at locums as like a transitionary thing initially and then I happened upon a different job opportunity which was permanent and not necessarily in a place that I wanted to be long-term but seemed like a simpatico kind of business approach and heard about it. The connection was through a former attending from my residency so it came with a good kind of thumbs up, and just over a period of time, it was clear that it was not going to probably be a good fit and there’s a couple of those things where you know that someone was looking for something different than they thought they were looking for when they hired you. And you just have to know that that’s a part of it and be confident in yourself that part of what you’re looking for, someone else is also looking for something when they hire you and you can’t know, just like I didn’t exactly know what I was looking for in this second job out of residency.
 
Jon: Right.
 
Trevor: Some people when they hire you, they also kind of don’t know what they’re looking for or what they want out of the end of their career. So I found myself on a similar path as many other associates where you got hired in and you find someone was kind of planning on retiring in the near future and that’s kind of the language of it, I’m looking for a partner very soon, and then there’s things you find along the way. Maybe you find that someone had been there for a while and wasn’t made a partner or someone was there temporarily, moved along, and you didn’t know about them before.  Those are the kinds of things that when you talk about a contract or negotiate about a job, you want to ask about those very thoroughly. You can go on websites actually and look at backdated versions of websites and find people who have been in the practice on the website. That was nice. I skipped one opportunity because of finding that. So these are the different things that happened. Anyways, I was in this other position for a short period of time really about six months and it wasn’t a good fit for a number of reasons and it’s one of those things like you have to be careful how you talk about things when you’ve been on the job and I do advise people, you know, know your reasons but be as positive as you can about them and no future employer wants to hear negative things when you’re interviewing at your next jobs.
 
Jon: That’s absolutely true.
 
When Finding Jobs – Be Positive, Know Your Worth, Don’t Put Down Somebody Else [0:12:36]
 
Trevor: You got to just be positive. You got to know your worth. You’re not worth more by putting down somebody else. Just basic stuff, which is challenging to do when you’ve been driven your whole life and you’ve been successful of becoming a doctor and getting good grades and getting a residency that you wanted and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, you can interview well. You can have had a couple job opportunities that you didn’t think were great from the start and that’s okay. You’re not going to lose opportunities for the future. You know, I picture myself at any point in the last year if somebody would have come along and said, how’s the job going, do you like it, what are your thoughts, I’d be that person or that my former self like, hey, you’re going to do a great job somewhere else. If you don’t think it’s a good fit, get going; get looking for something else. There’s no sense in hanging on to something that you feel like it’s not a good fit because there’s so many practices out there and if you just want to take good care of patients, you’re going to find a place where you can do that and not be stressed out, not feel like you’re kind of bending your care plan towards a certain mentality or efficiency or cost-effectiveness.
 
Jon: At what point should someone look and say, okay, either this is not a good fit or this is pretty good, there’s something in me that I need to come to terms with or adjust? How do you react with that?
 
First And Foremost, Don’t Make Any Rash Decisions [0:14:31]
 
Trevor: I agree totally. I’m somebody who looks at themselves in the mirror and really think like, okay, what can I be doing differently too. I think one thing you could do, if you find yourself in a position where you’re not enjoying your job, don’t make any rash decisions – number one.
 
Jon: Yup, good.
 
Trevor: I’d say the first thing you want to do is talk to a couple of mentors if you feel like there’s some things that are conflicting with you internally, you’re having that mental stress of like, I don’t know if this is quite the right thing or I feel like I’m not being allowed to practice in the way that keeps my patients safe or whatever it might be. You should talk to someone who’s a co-resident or a colleague or an attending and just have a confidential discussion. Hypothetically, if I found myself in this scenario, what would you think about that? Like I feel uncomfortable with it but, you know, I just came out of residency and maybe I don’t really know how the real world is and can you reassure me or is this something that should be a hang up for me I should talk to my boss about. That’s the real world. You started to have to have these conversations with your employer that are, you know, kind of uncomfortable or make you nervous but if you can have them in a respectful, responsible manner, it’s well thought out, you’re not firing off multiple e-mails, I mean, if you’re doing a lot of your discussion about this kind of stuff over e-mail, do not expect to be the one.
 
Jon: It’s not going to go well.
 
Trevor: That is not how you make any sort of resolution to really anything.
 
Jon: Yeah, that’s good advice. That’s general advice to anybody in the 2000s, now that we’re in this century like don’t have emotional conversations over text or e-mail. Have it verbally.
 
Trevor: Yeah. Even I would say don’t have any important conversations at all. If something’s a pain point for you, do not have that discussion over e-mail. I made this mistake and I was really fortunate because my first position, the president of the group – it’s a pretty big group – he would just come in and say like, hey, you know, I know you’re new, you just had residency, you want to make things better, don’t do it over e-mail. And that was like such a great tip because I was just like here I am like ambitious, well-intentioned. I’m writing this long e-mail and I’m thinking, I’m getting all my thoughts out perfectly like this.
 
Jon: This is going to be received so well.
 
Trevor: Yeah, exactly. I’m like, they’re going to be so glad they hired me. I was just like totally – I didn’t know 12 other ophthalmologists, I didn’t know. They’re going to all read one e-mail and potentially each person could take it differently rather than just having a conversation. I think that that’s something that most people wouldn’t do so it’s probably like not advice that everybody needs but I would just say the overarching thing for me like a huge – I like to have action points because it’s just easier. It’s just more tangible like here’s my rule. I really want to feel good about my work and about my ethics and about my patient care so I can easily prioritize the urgency and importance of that above the efficacy of my communication. And that’s probably a lot of doctors, I would guess. I know that’s probably why a lot of doctors butt heads with administration and hospitals and you hear that a lot. So, no e-mail for important conversations. Maybe an email to set something up to chat about it. I mean, that’s been one of my big takeaways. It goes both ways, you know. So, in terms of working on things, I have talked to a coach before which I found was really helpful.
 
Jon: Okay.
 
Trevor: A lot of people do that. it’s kind of becoming a thing now. You probably know it.
 
Jon: Yeah, it kind of is. You’ll see it with The Physician Philosopher and others like that in the arena that are offering coaching. Did you speak to someone that was physician-specific?
 
Trevor: Yeah. I found it incredibly helpful to talk to someone who was a physician who had experienced burnout. I’ve definitely experienced burnout and it’s helpful to have a little bit of that commiseration but you’re okay. The person I was talking – she gets it, you know, like she really loves people. She really loves medicine and like she was not enjoying it. She also was just not vibing; like the fit she had with her job was not good. She did not like the priorities lined up and so she made a shift and now she loves it and she doesn’t do many hours. She kind of figured out like what do I need to want to keep doing this. My story is different than hers but the same principles come across. Yeah, go ahead.
 
Jon: Is that somebody you think you can recommend that we could put a link in the show notes?
 
Burntout To Badass – Honing In On Your Priorities [0:19:57]
 
Trevor: Oh, totally. Let me look up her name real quick. I just got an e-mail from her. She puts out great stuff. Errin Wiseman is her name. She has a course called the Burntout to Badass. I haven’t done that. She came out with that after – I did just a few sessions with her a couple of years ago and that was incredibly helpful and so you don’t have to plan on shelling out like thousands of dollars for a year or whatever it is. I just had a few and it was just like really helped me hone in on my priorities like what I wanted, what I’m looking for. So, I’m kind of a long roundabout. We’re talking about locums but – I mean, hopefully even if anyone just listens to this and it’s just like, oh, cool, there’s other doctors that thought they knew what they wanted, pride themselves on knowing what they want that didn’t know what they want, and now they’re looking for something different. Part of what I’m looking for with locums is to try something different and see if maybe I like that version of medicine a little bit better and then it provides the flexibility to keep learning about solo practice. It’s also a nice try before you buy for practices so it’s sort of a non-committal or less committal almost more like dating rather than getting engaged right off the bat for starting a new job. Because you can’t know what the practice is like; you can’t really know what the flow of patients is like whether the doctor is going to share with you, you know, just the Medicare or going to share with you the premium patients. There are a lot of these things that can happen, that can really change the dynamic of what you think you’re getting and the locums really is a great way, like if I had a solo practice, I would love to hire somebody and it’s a 1099 to start. They like it and I like it then boom! Let’s mutually get more serious about the job now that we know we’re good to go and now it hasn’t cost the practice or the hospitals much money and it hasn’t cost them, you know, maybe all of their time or them moving themselves or their family or something like that. To me, it’s almost like if you’re going to go like first principles thinking like how would I want to hire somebody to feel something out because we’re expensive. It’s a huge loss. You sign a full at least one-year contract for a set amount no matter how good or bad somebody is. It seems like an awesome way to hire. I’m liking it just because it’s almost like you’re dating somebody, now you feel like you’re on the same page like you’re both taking it slow.
 
Jon: Sure. You are friends first and then you take this to the next level.
 
Trevor: Yeah, so to me, it just feels like the most sort of intelligent responsible way of looking at a new physician so I’m excited about that.
 
Jon: No, I think that’s awesome, and so for you, it kind of started out as, you know, I got to get out of here, I know I don’t necessarily want this, I think I want to have my own practice at some point, let’s go for this kind of locums part-time but still decent money. I mean is it the kind of money you said you’re going to be doing what you’re looking at right now. There’s a job that’s looking at 7 to 10 days a month, you said?
 
Trevor: Yeah, that’s right. So that’s what I’m looking for. I mean one thing that’s cool about medicine in general, I mean, it’s got the pros and cons, right, but if you are in rural America, you tend to get paid more. The payer mix is either higher or there’s just almost always you get paid a little bit more.
 
Jon: Oh, for sure. We’ve always thought it was like federal grants to some of these underserved areas can boost a lot of that or something.
 
Trevor: There are some of those programs but it’s mostly that there’s a different multiple that Medicare pays based on location.
 
Jon: Okay.
 
There’s Something Called Geographic Arbitrage [0:24:23]
 
Trevor: It’s supposed to kind of be related to living costs, I think. I’m not really sure exactly but it has to do with that multiple at least for the government program. But then there’s certain pockets of the country too that have really good pension programs. Some of them will be in rural areas so that can be helpful too. Anyways, they call it geographic arbitrage and you can work in a remote area and then do locums and you can make pretty good money. I know especially like if you’re a radiologist and anesthesiologist and things like that can be really pretty easy to find a position and then you can work in places that are not as necessarily going to attract as many people and then they’ll kind of pay you a little bit more just because they need radiology and even though they’re not quite making as much – an average doctor at hospital might make like a hundred grand often a year or more eventually – maybe they’ll just eat that cost because they need a radiologist and then they’re going to make it up.
 
Jon: They bring in more people eventually.
 
Trevor: Yeah. All that’s to say you can make a little bit more money in certain areas. There’s a huge range for what they pay per day in ophthalmology. That was kind of interesting.
 
Jon: Oh really.
 
Trevor: Yeah. And you can negotiate but you’re kind of competing with other people for a limited number of positions so you don’t want to drive too hard of a bargain or else they’re just going to take guy number two for hundreds of dollars less per day potentially if they’re really price-driven.
 
Jon: Yeah.
 
Trevor: Yeah, there’s varying amounts.
 
Jon: Okay.
 
Trevor: You can look at how much doctors make and compare the different subspecialties and clearly some more than others but it is interesting to break that down all the way to a daily rate and when you’re looking at locums, you’re looking at a daily rate of what that doctor will get paid for the work that they do and then you have to include the fact that if you’re working with a locums agency, they’re going to get paid too at some sort of rate either for the contract duration or I’m sure there’s a few ways to do it and then they’re going to pay for your travel, for your lodging, and for your car as well, so your rental car; so flights, rental car, and lodging. I don’t know if they need to pay for food but certainly some hospitals have free cafeterias and stuff. So they’re paying your daily rate plus all of that so you already know that the hospital somehow is making more hiring you.
 
Jon: Yeah.
 
Trevor: Most physicians, they’re not going lose on average generally, right, because they can’t on average. So they’re paying somebody else to find you and you and all of your travel expenses. I talked to a radiologist. He started hunting around – he’s been doing this for 25 years or so.
 
Jon: Locum work?
 
Trevor: Yeah, just purely locums. He started hunting around for his own locum’s work, not using an agency and just calling hospitals or making friends – other radiologists – and asking around. When you do that, you can cut out the middle man and meet in the middle.
 
Jon: Okay, So, per-day rates can be higher?
 
Trevor: Your per-day rate is going to be higher. And what could be better than increasing your per-day rate? You know what I mean?
 
Jon: Yeah.
 
Trevor: That’s like a lawyer charging more per hour substantially.
 
Jon: For the same work, yeah.
 
Trevor: With the same work, you’re already going to be doing the work. It’s an interesting way of thinking about a raise in a different way. That’s something I have attempted a little bit. I think it’s hard for ophthalmology, but if I was a radiologist, I would not be using a recruiter. If I was an anesthesiologist, I would not be using a recruiter, and certainly other high-paying subspecialists like if I was a dermatologist and I did like Mohs and I was just graduating and I didn’t care where I lived and I wanted to be somewhere or I was okay with being there for two to five years, you could definitely find a hospital that doesn’t have a Mohs surgeon and just call them and say, hey, would you support me in my first couple of years. You could make your own deal. I mean, residents and fellows that are graduating right now that aren’t doing that, I know it’s busy, I know it’s stressful, but if you go and do that, holy smokes! I can imagine how much more you would make in your first or second year just being basically a free agent instead of being drafted.
 
Jon: Sure, yeah.
 
Trevor: Yeah. I mean it would be loads, loads of money for those people. We’re talking like easily a hundred thousand dollar raise just from looking around and finding your own thing.
 
Jon: Yeah, I wonder because again we have residents that their main financial goal before they talk to us and sometimes even after afterwards is that they want to pay off their student loans first no matter what before they really invest and that’s certainly if they want to frontload that before they really settle on their final job or maybe they want to do that before they have kids or whatever the case might be, it’s a good time to do that. Maybe you can aggressively pay down loans with that extra hundred grand a few years sooner.
 
The Secret Sauce If You Are Doing Locums – Call Up Hospitals And Ask For the Physician Recruiter [0:030:03]
 
Trevor: Oh, yeah. I mean some of them when I’m saying 50,000 to 100,000, that might be part of the daily rate. It might be part of whatever. If you’re doing locums, they don’t really do signing bonuses but you could call – you know, the world is your oyster – you can call places and just say, hey, who’s your – and this is one thing I learned – is you have to know who to ask for. So this is like the tip of the podcast here – ask for the physician recruiter. You can just call the hospital – I feel like I’m giving away the secrets sauce here – but you can call the hospital – and I’ll let you know, me I love just like cold calling and talking to people – call the hospital. It doesn’t matter. Talk to their operators and say, hey, would you mind transferring me to administration. They’ll transfer you to admin. Someone in admin is going to know who the physician recruiter is and if they don’t outsource that then, you know, fully 100%, if they have somebody that fits that type of role a little bit or some similar name, that person will love that you went straight to them rather than using a recruiter because they save money too and they look good. So you’re helping whatever hospital you’re calling. The person who hires you and brings you to everybody else, you’re making them look good. I mean, that’s a great way to get a job right there. And those people, they’re physician recruiters so they’re also the nicest people ever. They’re always bubbly. They’re like, oh, let me take down your e-mail and we’ll let you know and let me talk to so and so and I’ll give you a call back and they’re actually responsive to e-mails. Because that’s what they do. I don’t know. If I was talking to residents, I would just say like do yourself a favor. Pick a state and just start calling hospitals and talk to their physician recruiters and see what you can find out because, you know, doctors can do this stuff and it’s not that difficult. There’s so many resources for contract negotiation now too. You know these paid services where they really do, they look at so many contracts. You could start setting yourself up for your own thing and you’re like, oh, I don’t know if this is even going to be a good deal or am I making up. You just pay under a thousand bucks and get an expert review and now you know. So now you’ve done it yourself, it’s like selling your own home, you know. For sale by owner is such a great way to sell your house.
 
Jon: Good learning experience.
 
Trevor: Yeah, the buyer’s agent will basically do all the work for you because they want the sale or else they don’t get any percentage. So if somebody brings you a buyer then you don’t even have to do any work or if you find somebody else who doesn’t want to use an agent, you can just figure out what deal you want to make and then go to a lawyer and they write it up and it cost you like 1500 bucks instead of 6 or 7% of the total worth of your house. There’s just these big moments where you can kind of buck up and do your own work and then pay an expert to make sure you’re not being an idiot and you’re going to clean up six figures pretty easily and, for a lot of people, you’re halfway done with your student loans at that point.
 
Locums Interview Process Vs Typical Interview Process [0:33:20]
 
Jon: Yeah, exactly. Going about the process of finding it once you connect with some, tell us about the interview process. Is it different than a typical interview process?
 
Trevor: It is different. I would encourage people to interview just as seriously as you would for a normal interview. Like right now, I didn’t shave really. You can see this is my preferred kind of look but, generally, I won’t normally have, you know, maybe half this or something. But if I’m interviewing on a Zoom call for a locum which you pretty much always are, I would shave. I would wear like a dress shirt; maybe even a suit coat jacket on top. So, take it seriously. Assume they haven’t read your resume. I think on at least one interview, I was just kind of thinking they were going to take it seriously as I was taking it and I found that they didn’t really. I interviewed with somebody and then within an hour, I got an email from the locum’s person, my agent, and he was like, hey, what about this part of your resume, hey what about this part of your resume, and I was like I literally just got off the phone with them 45 minutes ago, why didn’t they ask me? I thought that was the point of the interview, you know.
 
Jon: Sure.
 
Trevor: It was just funny. I don’t know if it was a lack of organization.
 
Jon: What’s the point of a resume, yeah.
 
Trevor: Yeah, so it was just kind of funny. I was like, oh, yeah, I’ll totally, you know, here’s my answer, here’s my answer; happy to hop on a call if they need clarification. So just kind of assume they don’t know, give your story, kind of tell them what you’re looking for. And then I’ve been reading this book – I haven’t talked about this with you – but it’s called Business Made Simple – there you go.
 
Jon: Okay, yeah.
 
Trevor: Business Made Simple, and it’s by Donald Miller. I love his stuff. He is kind of like a marketing guy.
 
Jon: Yes, the StoryBrand.
 
Trevor: Yeah, StoryBrand guy. He’s written a lot of books about his own life and then he really got into marketing maybe up to 10 years ago now. Good stuff. He wrote this book and it’s sort of like a 60-day going through business principles but the first week or two or is really just on your own personal development and talking about character and your values and what are the things that matter to you that set you apart and when you develop those and they’re solidified in your mind; it’s sort of knowing your strengths. There’s always a classic like what are your strengths, what are three strengths and three weaknesses or something like that, and just knowing yourself on the level of your character and your story, being able to communicate your story in a transparent but still very positive way like no matter what. When somebody says three strengths and three weaknesses, you don’t tell them, well, I’m terrible at time management and I never get anything done. Do you know what I mean?
 
Jon: Yeah.
 
Trevor: Those are not the types of things that you would say on an interview. You wouldn’t say like, I’ve been late. You know, sorry I was late to this interview, yeah. All my friends teased me about being late or whatever it is, you know what I mean? Like you don’t tell them like worst things. You want to give them the best afford, still be honest, still be transparent. But this book, I think is really cool because it helps you prioritize real things that make a difference that’ll enhance your leadership skills.
 
Jon: I’ll have to check that out. Great, that’s sweet. We’ll put a link in the show notes to that.
 
Trevor: Yeah, it’s really good. I’ve enjoyed it. I’m about three weeks into it and they’re really short. It’s kind of like you read it and you’re like I knew that, but now it’s organized and you get that mental framework.
 
Jon: Yup.
 
Trevor: Yeah.
 
When You Get A Job Offer, What’s Next? [0:37:26]
 
Jon: Good. So you go to through the interview, take it seriously even though they may not necessarily appear to read your resume beforehand. So when you get a job offer from somewhere, what does that look like typically? What are some different things about that with locum?
 
Trevor: Yeah, for locums that is different. So you get an offer. Basically, if you work with a recruiter, you kind of get a message like, hey, they’re like good to go, would move forward, and you’re like, okay, cool. I haven’t done this before, what does that mean?
 
Jon: They’re like, oh shoot!
 
Trevor: And they’re basically like, well, we got to get you licensed in the state and that can take however long. This is a cool thing now. They have something called a letter of qualification and you can apply for his letter. You apply actually within your own state but you use an interstate medical licensing, IMLCC, credentialing center or something; imlcc.com is the website. Anyways, you pay a pretty decent amount of money. I think it’s 700 dollars or 800 and the state that you’re in verifies, okay, yeah, like, you’re good to go. You have no malpractice claims. You have no background issues. You do fingerprinting. They give you a letter – they have like an agreement or compact with 30-ish states in the U.S. so mostly Midwest, northern, and eastern states. You can get a license within – 10 days is kind of long – but they can get them usually within 48 hours and that tends to be a rate limiting step for a lot of states with getting credentialed. The locum’s agency, if it’s a good one, they’ll pay for that so you don’t have to do it yourself; just have an out-of-pocket expense and you maybe do or don’t get a position, and then you get the state license, and they kind of walk you through it sort of. If anyone has applied to a hospital for credentialing, typically, it’s like, oh yeah, we’ll help you with all this, we’ll take care of it, and then some hospitals will fill out everything for you. You’ll send them a resume. They’ll fill it all out and you just kind of look it over and sign and then some hospitals will be like, we’ll take care of it all for you, and they send you a link and a code to log in and then you have to fill it out everything yourself, and it sounds like a silly thing to complain about but if you move to a big city, you’re doing like four or five of these, it’s a lot, like it’s one of those things that are like solo doctors. They spend a lot of their time on paperwork because they don’t have somebody who does it for them. Anyways, they’ll kind of help you with that. They make sure you have it all done but you still have to be sitting down signing PDFs like every other day for a month or so. It’s getting a home loan, they’re like, don’t worry, we just need three documents for you.
 
Jon: From your last one.
 
Trevor: You’ve gotten a home before. Yeah, this is the last one. Every day for 30 days, you know what I mean? It’s not quite as bad. They’re like Quicken Loans home loan process or something. It still ends up being, you know, it’s always like one more thing and oh can we get a little more detail on this; that date doesn’t line up with that and you’re like, oh, it turns out it was a typo. That’s kind of the process. So they kind of give you like a thumbs up and then you just start the credentialing process just like you would with a regular job. The big difference is your 1099, they do cover your malpractice and with your tail so you don’t have to pay 5 grand, 10 grand at the end of the contract. It’s just all included capped off specific to that location so you can’t work locums one place and then start doing another one or like range your own or work in your practice and have that malpractice cover you. It just covers your job there.
 
Jon: Yup.
 
Very Important – Read All Your Contracts [0:41:44]
 
Trevor: I read all my contracts. I read them very thoroughly myself. I would encourage all doctors to do that. it’s kind of a headache. It’s kind of a pain. You feel like you don’t know what you’re reading. You read it once. If you feel like it was confusing, take a day off, read it again. It’s set in plain English because it has to be pretty easily understandable by all parties to hold up in the court of law. So like if you’re a doctor and you read it twice, you’re going to understand it. You’re not going to know what you don’t know but if it’s a hospital system, a lot of people have signed it and then you can get a contract person to review it or a lawyer to review it. It shouldn’t cost more than a thousand dollars. Anyways, that’s kind of been my process. Don’t be afraid to hunt around. Don’t be afraid to turn things down. Just because you’re doing locum, it doesn’t mean you have to take the first thing that comes along.
 
Jon: Good point.
 
Trevor: I’ve turned down three, four opportunities that I’m sure I would have gotten if I would have taken their stated introductory rate, daily rate, and I was just like that’s just not enough for me to want to fly out and do this and that. Hospitals are going to try to get the lowest amount and if you’re not getting paid for call and you’re going to take a call, that’s kind of crazy like I would definitely get paid for call. You’re giving up your time even though you’re there just for the job potentially if you’re traveling for it. Kind of value your time. It’s hard to do when you’re looking for something but just know your worth. Value your time. If you’re going to find a job that you like and it might be from that locum’s job and it might not be but find something that really compensates you at a level that you think is reasonable.
 
Jon: That’s good.
 
On Getting Paid – Do Some Simple Math [0:43:50]
 
Trevor: I’ve one other thought on the finance part. I would also recommend just doing some simple math on what you get paid if you were getting paid for a permanent position there. So keep in mind you’re going to have travel days on each end so you’re really losing a couple of days potentially depending on how far you have to go. So if you’re working seven days, let’s say, you get paid the same amount. Let’s say you get paid – and this would be kind of low – but let’s say you get 1500 and you work seven days with the same rate – and it might be less on the weekends, you know, if you’re not seeing patients – that’d be 10,500 dollars. And you’ve lost two days, the travel time back and forth-ish especially if there’s a time change or something. But let’s just say you work that job permanently and you were there, you know, 10,500 dollars for seven days and you multiply that by four so that’s 42,000 a month multiplied by 12 months and then that’d be 500,000 dollars. That’s really good – 500,000 dollars – but really you wouldn’t work that much and they’re kind of paying you for the time of the travel and 1500 is pretty good for ophthalmology potentially, and you wouldn’t be getting paid for those weekend days. So if you’re getting paid like 400, 450 and you’re traveling to somewhere that’s not cream-of-the-crop location – that’s not Chicago or Denver or LA – you’re getting paid pretty well for that time. But, if you cut out some of those days and then you’re down like 20%, you’re at 350,000 or 400,000. If you take a job for 300,000 in a city that you like better and you’re okay working permanently than for somebody else and all that stuff lines up where you find the perfect practice, is it worth an extra 50,000-dollar potential amount? You just have to kind of weigh that out. So I’d like to look at it both on a daily rate and like I’m traveling and losing a little bit of time perspective, and then I look at it from an annual rate too because you don’t know how to price out like how much is my daily rate worth because most doctors have never thought about that before.
 
Jon: No, it’s true, yeah.
 
Trevor: So if you’re switching, you can take your current salary and then divide it down for, you know, if you’re going to just work weekdays, you can divide it down and just look at that, but if you’re going to work 14 days and they’re not going to pay you for the weekend in between, kind of like losing some time. You just have to look at all those factors. It ends up being simple multiplication most of the time and just remembering to factor in, oh, I would have taken vacation. So, really you’d want to multiply that by 10 months because you’re probably would have taken 4 to 8 weeks of vacation so that would be 400,000. So you’re like, okay, this 1500 dollar per day rate makes pretty good sense but 1200 dollars per day definitely does not. That’s kind of like, you know, you could find a part-time job in a city or in a lot of different places potentially and make 200,000 per year. So, it’s good. It’s just an attempt to compare apples to apples.
 
Jon: Yup, definitely. I think which goes back to the, you know, don’t necessarily jump at it right away. You don’t always have to take the first job. Take your time both getting a job and leaving a job which, again, this is true in investing or job choices or anything but don’t base any decisions on any one point in time. Patience is power is what I tell my kids.
 
Trevor: Totally. Unless if you’re in like a horrendous scenario that you know you just have to get out of.
 
Jon: Sure, there’s an exception of that.
 
Trevor: Yeah, those definitely exist in medicine so I would never judge anybody who departed from something quickly just knowing those scenarios happen. There’s personal things that happen. People have step away for whatever. But really, three months, six months like you might know at one month but you can wait another month and then you’re going to start looking. Most of the time, it’s going to take you a good three months to find something especially sorting out between a few good opportunities to find the great opportunity.
 
Jon: Yeah. So if it’s not a big hurry or urgent, try to save up some cash for that gap.
 
Trevor: Yeah, definitely. I mean it’s one of the reasons you want to have an emergency fund of at least three months.
 
Jon: Yup, totally true. Okay, well, I think that’s about our time for today. I think that was super helpful. We got some great stuff out of that. Hopefully, there’s things that listeners can take whether they take action on it now, whether they never do anything with locums, whether they’re thinking about it or they can use it in the future, this is going to be a great resource and I really appreciate your time and letting us learn from your experiences instead of having to learn the hard way.
 
Trevor: Totally, happy to help. If anybody has any questions, they can email me at tsmith@financialmd.com or my other email is trevorsmithmd@gmail.com. Happy to reply on a personal level or professional level if you have any questions. Happy to chat with you.
 
Jon: Awesome. All right. Well, everyone, we’ll see you next time on our next episode. In the meantime, be sure to get up to the Financial MD community, that’s the Facebook group that’s specifically designed for physicians by physicians to ask questions, to start some conversations. We post articles and tips and things there. Get out to our YouTube channel. Subscribe to our weekly Didactic Minute video where we put out little two-minute tips of personal finance things that pertain to you as physicians and other than that, we’ll see you next time on the Financial MD show.
 
Trevor: Awesome. Thanks, Jon.
 
Thanks for joining us for another Financial MD Show. Be sure to head over to financialmd.com to get more in-depth resources on financial tips for physicians and don’t forget to join the Financial MD community group on Facebook, where physicians at all stages of their career gather to share tips and get ideas on achieving true financial success. We’ll see you next time.
 
The Financial MD Show is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to invest. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. Be sure to seek financial, legal, or tax professionals when making any financial decisions. Before investing, you should make sure that any investment strategy or investment meets your individual investment needs, goals, and objectives. Financial MD makes no claims or guarantees to individual investment performance. All investing involves the risk of loss as well as the potential for gain.
 
 
Resources and Links:
Definition of Locum – https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/locum
The Physician Philosopher - https://thephysicianphilosopher.com/
Burnout to Badass by Errin Wiseman – https://www.burntouttobadass.com/about
First Principles Thinking – https://www.jumpstarthealth.co/blog-1/first-principles-thinking-adopted-from-aristotle
What is geographic arbitrage – https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/money/saving/geographic-arbitrage
Business Made Simple – https://www.amazon.com/Business-Made-Simple-Leadership-Marketing-ebook/dp/B085XNKHMB
StoryBrand by Donald Miller – https://storybrand.com/
Interstate Medical Licensure Compact – https://www.imlcc.org/
Financial MD Website – https://www.financialmd.co/
Financial MD YouTube page – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6qEAQxK8L8JM7joy3wvdkA
Financial MD Facebook community – https://www.facebook.com/FinancialMD/
Financial MD TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@financialmd
Financial MD Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/financial.md/
Financial MD Twitter – https://twitter.com/financialmd2
Financial MD LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/financial-md/?viewAsMember=true
Financial MD App – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/financialmd/id1507757039
Financial MD Apple Podcast –
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-financialmd-show/id1548024586

Ep 012 - Why Jon Loves Being A Financial Planner

Summary:
There’s A Certain Excitement On Initial Consultation [0:00:31]
Being A Financial Advisor Is Interesting [0:02:13]
Estate Planning – A Fun Kind Of Challenge [0:05:15]
Having No Estate Planning Is A Bad Decision – Take For Example, Howard Hughes [0:06:53]
There Are A Million Different Ways To Do Financial Planning [0:12:43]
At Financial MD, We Are Happy To Have A Good Impact On Our Clients’ Lives [0:15:22]
Ultimate Goal Is To Be The Best You Can Be [0:20:24]
In Financial Planning, You Have To Have Your WHY To Motivate You [0:24:10]
 
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
Trevor: I’m just thinking. I mean, when you sit down with people when you’re doing some advising, what do you get most excited about like talking to the clients about? Is it the value – big picture like value? Is it potential money earned, saved, taxes? What pops up along the way where you’re just like, oh, this is the fun part, I get to talk about whatever.
 
There’s A Certain Excitement On Initial Consultation [0:00:31]
 
Jon: Well, great question. I would say when I think back on the last seven years and the clients that I worked with, there’s a certain excitement to sitting down when we do an initial consultation and somebody has seen me at a workshop or lectures – something along those lines – or dinner what-have-you and they’re sitting down with me – I just love that first moment when I just, okay, hey, great to meet you, hope you got some value at the lecture, what can I help you with – and just, you know, whatever comes next. Some were similar but they’re never the same and then the hour-long conversation that ensues after that. I love getting to know people. You know, you know my background. I was a counselor before this and as much as I got bored of that real quick being a counselor – you know, I still loved the people and loved the ones that I felt like I could help – and being in financial planning is a little bit of a different atmosphere because I still feel like I’m utilizing quite a bit of the soft skills and the counselor stuff that I had of just the psychology, but it’s more rewarding in a few different ways because number one, I get to really pick and choose who I can work with for one. Number two, it scratches the itch of being an entrepreneur and get into really determine my future but mainly, I’m sitting down and listening for most of that hour when I first meet people and hearing about some of their fears and some of their goals and dreams and what they love and what they hate and all those things makes for – I never get bored of that part, and I’ll be sad if I ever have to get out of it and play CEO or do any of those things but I hope I’ll always be able to do a little bit of that. Money’s an interesting one.
 
Being A Financial Advisor Is Interesting [0:02:13]
 
When I was first looking at the field of financial planning, I remember I was meeting with a family friend that was the only financial advisor I knew and just talking to him and he was a real genuine guy and he said being an advisor is interesting because there’s a lot of people who, you know, the two most important things in their life – and he worked for a lot of Christians – and he said, the two most important things in their life and they won’t admit to this but it’s money and God and often on the same plane and sometimes not in the right order and people will tell you things that they don’t tell anybody else and it’s interesting. So that part probably just my favorite part about being in financial planning and being a financial planner and then once I’ve been working with a client for a little while, that transitioned out of residency into practice is pretty fun, sitting down for a first review meeting, they’ve been in practice, they’ve gotten a few big paychecks, and I’m excited for them.
 
Trevor: That’s cool.
 
Jon: I have a client right now. I was the first one they told when they got pregnant so that was kind of special.
 
Trevor: That’s cool. You have how many kids again?
 
Jon: I have four.
 
Trevor: Four kids, yeah.
 
Jon: That’s the stuff that keeps me going quite a bit on that end. Topic-wise, what do I really like to get into, I love talking about things that I know a lot about like anybody, say this and brag a little bit. I feel like we’re probably the financial planners that know the most about disability insurance, you know, other than somebody that that’s all they do is sell disability insurance. They’re insurance agents. For us being financial planners, we are licensed to sell it, but we’ve been doing it so long with doctors that we got to be one of the experts as far as if we took a handful of financial planners. So I enjoy that part because that’s probably one of the areas we get the most questions on because they’re getting hit by these insurance companies or agents that are just going after them, trying to get a big policy, thrown into some big policy that they shouldn’t be in and getting a big commission and/or getting some complicated thing and 90 percent of the time when I sit down with these people that already have a policy, I’m like, okay, so can you tell me the details in your policy, and most of them are like, I have no idea, I bought this in second-year residency or whatever. So, it’s fun sorting that out for people. It’s gratifying but sad when I have to tell them that like, you probably made a bad purchase here, because insurance is a sensitive topic. Investing is easy to talk about, right? Cash flow, budget – those things are fairly easy to talk about – but when I sit down and say, okay, let’s talk about when you’re going to die or when you’re going to get sick or injured or the scary times in life, I think a lot of planners or advisors might avoid that. I think, here at Financial MD, we are happy to talk about it. We know a lot about it and so we get a lot of that kind of peace and comfort from clients knowing that, okay, it’s good to know that I’ve sat down finally with somebody that I feel like cares about me that, you know, as a fiduciary because I’m paying them but they can help me sort out this insurance issue without as much anyway conflict of interest and that kind of thing. Yeah, I like talking about that. It’s easy.
 
Estate Planning – A Fun Kind Of Challenge [0:05:15]
 
I like talking about estate planning. I’ve gotten to be friends with quite a few estate planning attorneys, some that I send clients to, just getting to know that profession, that field; the nuances of estate planning, just that concept of trying to take what you have accumulated and earned and worked for, how do I pass this on to my family or charities or people that I care about and – as my conservative root showing – how do I keep that out of the government’s hands as much as possible, you know, with my Libertarian bent. That’s a fun kind of challenge and I’m always trying to learn more about estate planning. I’m actually into the final class of the CFP coursework which is estate planning so I’m trying to really pay attention. It’s super interesting.
 
Trevor: That’s cool. Estate planning is something I’m not terribly familiar with, kind of for obvious reasons. I mean, I’m still not too close to the end of my life and there’s just so many other fish to fry in the short term.
 
Jon: Yeah, that’s what it feels like, and that’s what a financial planner’s job is to help you prioritize what you should do first.
 
Trevor: Yeah. You often have, if you’ve done a great job of planning and if you’ve been a high net worth individual or you often have the most money when you die, you can often have the most money you’ve had in your life when you die and so you have the most to lose, right?
 
Jon: Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.
 
Trevor: I mean when you have the most and you could potentially have the government take half, you’ve done all that work and then to have not organized what happens after you’re gone can cause you more than any decision you ever made while alive. Is that an accurate statement?
 
Having No Estate Planning Is A Bad Decision – Take For Example, Howard Hughes [0:06:53]
 
Jon: Definitely, yup, for sure. Case in point – who was it that died and his estate – this is a different celebrity story. I like listening to a podcast called Celebrity Estates. Howard Hughes’ estate, for example, was in the hundreds of millions at this point when he died. A great aviator – he helped to build some planes during World War II. He was an innovator in the field of aviation. Howard Hughes had an estate valued at, I think, a couple of hundred million dollars – had no will. No trust, nothing, and really no family that was obvious to pass through in probate, and so within a few weeks, there were about 15 different wills that came forward. Howard Hughes, he died, no will, had an estate probably around a couple of hundred million if I remember it correctly and then within a few weeks, about 15 different wills surfaced, none of which proved to be valid and the court just ended up dividing his stuff between a bunch of cousins.
 
Trevor: Wow.
 
Jon: Meanwhile, the probate cost – just for the probate fees and court fees – can be between 3 and 8 percent. So if you think about, let’s say, split the difference, 5 percent on 200 million is 10 million so that sucks and then there was a decent amount of estate taxes, I’m sure, which right now, the estate tax range is about 40 percent if you got a net worth over 11 million as a couple which when we look at 30, 40, 50 years from now when a lot of us are going to die, that’s not a high number and if we think of trends and what, say, this administration has proposed to do some tax changes, one of the big ones is pulling that ceiling way back down so that if you have a million or half a million net worth which is very common, then you’re going to be looking at estate taxes, so it’ll be much more critical to know how you’re set up for estate purposes and trying to avoid that, you know, and then just the cost and things notwithstanding, just the fact if I want to make sure that whomever is important to me that gets what I feel like they deserve whether it’s again charities or family or whatever.
 
Trevor: Yeah, but money actually goes where you want it to go.
 
Jon: Yeah, so there’s a lot of risk there that we want to try to mitigate and I guess it kind of feels like when you think of all the areas from investing to insurance to estate planning to tax planning like a lot of it is just like minimizing the risks that are involved because if you can just avoid some of the landmines and pitfalls will do pretty well especially in this country.
 
Trevor: Yeah, that’s right. We have significantly less although that’s sort of like big area of potential change here coming up with how much money is being printed but we have significantly less existential threats in the United States, or we have, it’s probably more accurate. We’ve had less threats that can completely undermine the value of our money or work. Our government is not likely to seize our businesses or assets because they’ve changed their priorities or the administration is changed or a coup has occurred and that is a luxury beyond luxury on our planet.
 
Jon: Yeah, absolutely.
 
Trevor: That’s pretty uncommon. I mean, let alone your own personal safety and that of your family, you know, all that crazy stuff that can happen and have in the last hundred years.
 
Jon: Yeah, when you think on the side. I heard an interesting tidbit today. Spain or Portugal is going to have a 3-year experiment of doing a four-day workweek, so as a country, that’s interesting.
 
Trevor: That’s very cool. I wonder who came up with that. I’m going to have to google that.
 
Jon: I don’t know. Millennials, probably.
 
Trevor: More power to them if so.
 
Jon: Yeah. What would the world be like if we all had an extra day?
 
Trevor: It’s funny. Here’s the thing, depending on which generation or whatever your perspective is – usually it doesn’t matter your generation, just how your brain has been programmed over the years of what your experience and exposures – you’ve got this idea, oh, five days is what is done and that is the best that shows hard work, that shows commitment. So you attribute these values to this system when the system doesn’t care what values you’ve attributed to. The five-day workweek doesn’t care whether you think that means that your employees are working hard. It doesn’t care. It’s just the system, right? So what if the system is not optimized for performance or happiness or growth or whatever and also the four-day workweek is actually what causes your company to grow and you to pool in better talent and people want to stay there because they like to be able to travel on the weekends. Whatever it is, it’s so easy to go, oh, yeah, that’s a millennial thing and kids these days don’t want to work and blah-blah-blah. It’s much more the case that our generation just wants to question the value, the base like first principle’s thought of, okay, a five-day workweek, is it best or not; is it optimizing the things that our company or family or whatever unit our church values or does our church value different things, okay, then what if we align those values with how we work our hours throughout the week. And then all of a sudden, the conversation is not like righteous or self-righteous basis of philosophy. It’s now how do we work together to accomplish what we actually wanted to accomplish.
 
There Are A Million Different Ways To Do Financial Planning [0:12:43]
 
And again, this is why we like financial planning is because there are a million different ways to do financial planning and tons of different goals that people come to the table with or even just values and they haven’t even made their goals yet. For some people, they probably sit down with you – tell me if this is the case. They probably sit down with you and they really haven’t put together goals.
 
Jon: No, for sure.
 
Trevor: They never really thought about their life in terms of goals but they did have values and they had never put names and words to those values. Now, they sit down with you and they realized, okay, there’s actual limitations to how much monetary energy I can create with my job which means I have to focus that limited time, limited monetary energy that time is converted into, and then that can be targeted towards goals that can make a difference in the world around you – the physical world around you – just by purposely pursuing them and you can actually achieve more goals if you plan appropriately, and if you save in certain ways or you give your money to certain groups of people who also makes similar or wise decisions that they’re goal-oriented and value-oriented, it becomes exponential. Yeah, that’s why you have a cool job. I mean, you get to rubber meets the road for a lot of people for the first time in their life, and working with doctors, it’s while they’re in the thick of it as residents and then like you said, you get to be one of the cool parts – you get to be part of that transition. With your clients, most of them have a 5x or 10x increase or some of them even higher on their salary like at the flip of graduation from the residency and now they have this entirely new powerful tool to change and form the world around them in their lives and that of their family, I mean, and the right framework which you have and financial advisors have; now also and you can channel that energy.
 
Jon: Yeah, and that’s it. I mean, we sat down and added up one day just an estimate of the income that’s going to happen, you know. If there’s a million and a half attending physicians and they’re averaging even just 200,000 dollars a year of income over a 30-year career, it’s getting into the trillions of dollars and so we began to realize at Financial MD when we birthed this vision like what’s at stake and what we potentially have influence over.
 
At Financial MD, We Are Happy To Have A Good Impact On Our Clients’ Lives [0:15:22]
 
If we can take just a piece of that and influence it for good, I’ll die a happy man knowing that my company helped to steer the trajectory of society by taking these high-income individuals that some of them will do good things for sure, some of them will have good advice for sure, but we just want to be able to impact a small fraction of that for the good to say, hey, let’s just pause for a second and sit down and see what’s important to you in life and how do we make choices with your finances that are in line with those values and how can we, after taking care of yourself – and I try to push all my clients to think through this, you know – you take care of yourself for sure, take care of your family – we get that – but the third step that most of them don’t think about is how do you try and take care of the world around you, and I’m not saying sacrifice yourself to do that although I would say I believe there should be some of that.
 
Trevor: Right.
 
Jon: But almost all my clients are able to make an impact in the world around them without really cramping their lifestyle at all. So much so that if we were to say what’s your target client, obviously, it’s physicians, but to be even more specialized, it’s physicians that have enough care about the world around them that they want to make a difference in some way. And I’ve talked to some that really just don’t care and they’re just not a good fit here and I can’t get them to think of – you know, and I’ll push them too like if you could give a million dollars to something between now and the end of your life and it really made an impact on something, what would that be? What charity? What mission? What cause? And you know, I can usually get something out of people there but some people are just, no, I just want to be happy; like, okay.
 
Trevor: Which is fine, and you’re talking to residents too who are like drowning in stress?
 
Jon: Yeah, right.
 
Trevor: You know what I mean? I feel like I’m just, you know how they talk about like the cliché term – I don’t know if it was the 2000s or the 1990s or whatever – but it’s self-actualization of becoming your better or greater or truer self.
 
Jon: Yeah, the humanistic psychology.
 
Trevor: Yeah, okay. There’s some good movies where people talk about that. Fargo season two, and there’s a great character who’s always trying to self-actualize. I can’t remember who plays it now – Kirsten Dunst, I think. Anyway, it’s very funny the way that she’s always trying to do that and it just kind of flighty and purposeless but it’s like self-actualization for the sake of self-actualization. But if you actually do that, you can make a huge impact and some people when you’re a resident – let me just speak from my experience. In residency, basically we’re forced to, practically speaking, you didn’t have time to and my mentors some of whom really just – I had one person specifically tell me that you are not Trevor who is a doctor; you’re a doctor who happens to be is that you’re now a working physician. And that’s from somebody who is honestly like a great person, a great mentor, really made a huge difference for all the residents throughout our training – very grateful – but it’s just a different perspective and it certainly doesn’t help you free your mind to think like, oh, what are the possibilities that I can build in my life like what do I want to do and be, and that’s a nice version of what some people are told in residency. Some people get way, way worse than that and once you get out, it takes time, I think, for those layers of sort of like stress, I mean, in some cases for people certainly like toxic environments that they’d have had to work in. You have to be in a healthy environment for that stuff to heal and wipe away all of that dirt that helps you to see more clearly. Anyway, for me, I feel like I’m just kind of getting there and I’ve been a couple of years out and I’m learning a ton. I’m always interested in lots of things but it still takes a while to just feel like, what do I want because I was told what my goal was for a while and a lot of us who end up in med school at all were told by our parents or by mentors of like you should do this because it’s the best you can do. it’s just pure optimization. Your interests don’t matter and it’s not that they don’t matter because we think they’re bad. They don’t matter because your goal is to be the best you can be, right.
 
Ultimate Goal Is To Be The Best You Can Be [0:20:24]
 
Jon: That’s especially true in the Asian culture. I’ve talked to a lot of Indians and Middle Eastern. In fact, I was freshman at Michigan State, lived in the dorms, and on my floor was an Indian girl who I became good friends with and one day I just asked her because she was pre-med and I was like, how come all you guys are either doctors or engineers, but mostly doctors, it seems. She’s like, well, you know, we grow up with our parents helping us to be the best that we can be and our expectation on us is that you’ll then go – doesn’t matter what you want to do – you’re going to do the best thing that is out there in the world from a financial standpoint, from a prestigious standpoint, and to them it’s a doctor and so that was just the ultimate goal.
 
Trevor: Yeah, totally. I mean, a tenth of my classmates. I’m grateful to have been able to go to a great medical school and then also medical school that really value diversity. I grew up in a small Dutch community in West Michigan – Holland, Michigan. The amount that I learned about just like the world and what is out there, and I was fortunate to grow up in a family where I traveled abroad. My parents did mission trips that genuinely made a difference in Jamaica and we go there every year with a group of college students. My dad was a professor. So I had a bit of a global perspective, but still it’s not the same as being surrounded by a diverse community of people with different backgrounds. I mean that was very common. You hear that across the board like one of the common jokes is like, my parents told me I could be anything I wanted as long as it’s a doctor or a lawyer.
 
Jon: Yeah, right.
 
Trevor: I had friends who, in a non-joking way, would say like, yeah, my brother’s like applying in medical school again, my parents have always been disappointed with him. And I’m like what he is doing? He is an engineer. You know it’s like – they’re like super smart. They’re making probably as much or more than physicians in their lifetime, but it’s a different priority. So, all that to say I think it takes a lot of sort of unwrapping the programmed mindset that we get and then we program ourselves to be able to study as much as we have to study to get through all the training. For anybody who is listening, I mean, I talked to like a life coach or like a career coach person a couple of years ago and that was super helpful because they equip you with a skill set we weren’t taught which is thinking through your thoughts in a different way. It’s not so much introspection. It’s just like focusing your critical thinking that you learned in medicine on your own decision making for your life and it’s sort of like we kind of want a little bit hands off to stay on the conveyor belt and not think too much about the fact that we’re giving up our 20s and so you’re used to making big decisions and not really thinking too much about where it sends you and I found it really helpful to talk to a physician career coach and just to think about somebody who has also done and been through it and been burned out and all that kind of stuff. They have that perspective. Anyway, I think that’s very helpful. It’s a growing thing right now. I think the physician philosopher; he’s got some White Coat connections. I think he started some sort of coaching thing – he can be a coach now too. I mean you can see why it’s popping up. There’s a huge need for it and it’s really great.
 
In Financial Planning, You Have To Have Your WHY To Motivate You [0:24:10]
 
I mean, in financial planning, you have to have your WHY to be your motivator to stick to a plan and I think it’s why a lot of people don’t end up getting disability insurance when they should early on and they don’t put money into the Roth IRA when they can afford to. They just don’t have a WHY to motivate them because they are not looking at their life like it’s their own. They’re kind of you almost have to step outside of yourself to make it through the training, to sacrifice that much. So, yeah, anyway, I totally recommend anybody to get a few sessions with a career coach or a life coach – whatever you want to call it. Any that are with a physician is particularly beneficial. That was a huge rant about coaches and life perspective but it’s very important. You have to have big motivators and the ones that are truest to yourself are the ones that are going to make a difference. Other people’s dreams of being a multimillionaire, they’re not going to motivate you. You’re not going to care. You have to want something yourself and you have to know that it’s your own thing that you want that just come from you or you won’t get there.
 
Jon: Yeah. What is the phrase? Know thyself, right?
 
Trevor: Yeah, that’s tough. That’s like the toughest part of life, I think.
 
Jon: Yeah. Well, that’s probably our time. There’s so much more we could go on to that but thanks for switching seats and asking the questions today a little more but we’ve got some great resources continuing to come out. We’re going to be coming out with an online course for residents. This summer is the plan so that’s in the works. We’re super excited about that. It will be kind of do-it-yourself approach, step by step, what to do, when to do it, and just a lot of good on-demand education, so be on the lookout for that. Join the Financial MD Facebook community, so search for that. You’ll also find it on our website: financialmd.com. Check out the Didactic Minute videos on YouTube and Facebook. Those come out once a week which is quick two-minute topics, tips, finances, something to move you forward a little bit, and keep an eye on TikTok too. We’ll be throwing stuff out there. Yeah, I’m learning from my teenage daughter how to use that. So, lots of great stuff. We’re trying to give you again just to know more things and that’s usually a good thing. So, hope it helped. Again, with the Financial MD show, this is Jon Solitro and my co-host is Dr. Trevor Smith, and with that, we’ll see you next time.
 
Thanks for joining us for another Financial MD Show. Be sure to head over to financialmd.com to get more in-depth resources on financial tips for physicians and don’t forget to join the Financial MD community group on Facebook, where physicians at all stages of their career gather to share tips and get ideas on achieving true financial success. We’ll see you next time.
 
The Financial MD Show is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to invest. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. Be sure to seek financial, legal, or tax professionals when making any financial decisions. Before investing, you should make sure that any investment strategy or investment meets your individual investment needs, goals, and objectives. Financial MD makes no claims or guarantees to individual investment performance. All investing involves the risk of loss as well as the potential for gain.
 
 
Resources and Links:
Financial Planning – Definition, Objectives and Importance –
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/financial-planning.htm
Estate planning: What is it? – https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/estateplanning.asp
Certification Coursework Requirement – https://www.cfp.net/get-certified/certification-process/education-requirement/certification-coursework-requirement
Celebrity Estates podcast – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/celebrity-estates/id1466224736
What happened to Howard Hughes’ estate? – https://www.gordonfischerlawfirm.com/howard-hughes-estate/
Spain to try 4-day workweek – https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/03/15/spain-is-the-latest-country-to-try-a-four-day-workweek/?sh=5c663331f1da
Financial MD Website – https://www.financialmd.co/
Financial MD YouTube page – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6qEAQxK8L8JM7joy3wvdkA
Financial MD Facebook community – https://www.facebook.com/FinancialMD/
Financial MD TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@financialmd
Financial MD Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/financial.md/
Financial MD Twitter – https://twitter.com/financialmd2
Financial MD LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/financial-md/?viewAsMember=true
Financial MD App – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/financialmd/id1507757039
Financial MD Apple Podcast –
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-financialmd-show/id1548024586

Ep 011 – Dr. Smith Talks Crypto

Summary:
Tesla Acquired 1.5 Billion Dollars’ Worth Of Bitcoin [0:01:11]
Inflation – What Is The Value Of Money? [0:05:01]
There’s A New Asset Class – Digital Assets [0:08:12]
Everybody Can Have Bitcoin [0:10:49]
The Reason Companies Are Buying Bitcoin [0:11:38]
Pump Up Your Portfolio – Diversify! [0:16:23]
Implication For The Average Young Physician [0:17:52]
Volatility Is Not A Negative Thing [0:19:40]
As Elon Musk Said, ‘In Retrospect, It’s Inevitable’ [0:22:55]
 
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board-certified ophthalmologist with a full-time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
Jon: All right, so you want to get rolling on crypto?
 
Trevor: Let’s do it, yeah, and mostly just Bitcoin. I mean, I’m pretty…call me a Bitcoin maximalist is what they call it.
 
Jon: You bleed Bitcoin?
 
Trevor: I bleed Bitcoin. I mostly just don’t want other people to lose money in other more insanely speculative bets. It makes me nervous.
 
Jon: Okay. Ethereum pretty solid?
 
Trevor: Ethereum pretty solid – great question. That’s probably the biggest debate. Yeah, so Bitcoin is like mainstream. All of them put together, something like, you know, 1.1 trillion market cap that fluctuates a good 10 percent day-to-day, week-to-week, even more sometimes. So the whole market cap of like cryptocurrency and everything was like about 1.1 trillion, right. I think it’s a million for a second there. Yeah, so it’s definitely trillion and Bitcoin’s in the 800 billion range right now and that’s been kind of working its way up, and then Ethereum’s market cap actually should but I don’t know off the top of my head. It’s the second largest but it’s not an insane amount. I want to say – we could google it – but it’s probably between let’s say it’s 100 and 200 which I don’t think it’s that high. If it’s 100 billion then it’s still, you know, significantly smaller than Bitcoin, but it’s a significant part of the cryptocurrency kind of landscape because a lot of the other coins are either like sort of created on what’s considered the Ethereum network.
 
Tesla Acquired 1.5 Billion Dollars’ Worth Of Bitcoin [0:01:11]
 
Yeah, so those are the kind of the top two coins but like the main reason I wanted to talk about cryptocurrency and Bitcoin is because of the big news that Tesla acquired 1.5 billion dollars in Bitcoin a month ago.
 
Jon: Yeah, so let’s talk about that. Why do you think they got that?
 
Trevor: Yeah, so they called it in their filing with the SEC an alternative store of value asset. So it’s a store of value much like gold where it protects against inflation. When they say store of value, they kind of – it’s kind of like a fancy way of saying like hedge against inflation, meaning that there’s a lot of inflation and dollars losing their buying power, you know. Dollar is going to be a dollar, but a dollar versus, you know, what? A loaf of bread. A dollar versus a euro, a dollar versus a peso. You know, if it loses the ability to buy things then that’s important.
 
Jon: Sure. Value…
 
Trevor: So that’s the basis. Yeah, value, and it’s most important, you know, you can talk about like a banana at a store, okay, sure, like those prices do fluctuate and that’s kind of more on the order of the mainstream i...

Ep 018 – War in Europe and Your Finances

Summary:
Russia Invading Ukraine – Implications [0:01:31]
The Market Is Doing What It Always Does – Volatility [0:03:31]
What’s Inside An Average Client Portfolio (It’s Not All S&P Index Fund) [0:04:05]
Crisis In Europe Affects Gas Prices Which Affects The Stock Market [0:06:34]
The Longer You Wait To Curb Inflation, The Worse It Gets [0:08:30]
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
Jon: Hey everyone! Welcome to the eighth episode of the Financial MD Show. Hope you’ve been having a good time listening through all the episodes and learning stuff. Today, we’ve got a fan favorite. This is a highly requested topic both through emails and correspondence, and after getting requests on podcast topics as well as just getting straight up questions in the webinars and lectures and things that we do. Disability insurance is what we’re talking about today, which is great, because I’m knowledgeable on it, Trevor is knowledgeable on it, and we’ve had some good and bad experiences, but there’s a lot of mixed information out there and we hoped to straighten some of that out today. We’ll give you some tips on how to buy it, how to shop for, what to look for, what not to do, and ultimately how do you feel you’ve done well and just protect your finances. Without further ado, here’s today’s show.
 
 
Jon: Welcome everybody to the Financial MD Show. We are here, your hosts, once again, Jon Solitro and Dr. Trevor Smith. How are you, doc?
 
Trevor: I’m good, I’m good. How are you?
 
Jon: I’m great. I’m, as you know, sunglass shopping. We’re trying this out. We’ll see. I’ve gotten some other good recommendations. Thank you, sir.
 
Trevor: Your welcome, your welcome. American Optical.
 
Jon: American Optics. Sponsoring today’s episode is American Optics. They don’t pay us at all but, we’re going to pick them certainly.
 
Trevor: Yeah, I think is it American? It might even be American Optical. Either way, it’s the Top Gun. It’s the famous Top Gun aviator but they make some other less enormous frames.
 
Jon: Well, I got to tell you coming from an ophthalmologist, that has to mean something.
 
Trevor: Yeah, they’re great. Super quality.
 
Jon: All right. Cool. Well, we want to just bring in a short episode today. We’re going to try to get this out as soon as possible and talk about it’s now February 28th, the last official day of 2 of 22. Hope you all did wonderful things on 2/22/2022 – that was pretty exciting. But lots happened this year. This has probably been one of the worst Januarys on record for a long time and from the stock market standpoint. Here at Financial MD, we had investors who were down, you know, 15 percent within a span of a month or two because we had some aggressive stock portfolios and the stock market just took a hit and there’s a lot of reasons for that.
 
Russia Invading Ukraine – Implications [0:01:31]
 
We’re going to talk about a few of them today just briefly but we’ve also got an uncertain future, frankly, and we’re not going to beat around the bush with Russia invading Ukraine. That’s a big deal and could be potentially the start of a World War III or could be, you know,

Ep 009 – When Its Not a Good Idea to Use a 401k

Summary:
What Is A 401(k)? When Was It Created? [0:03:00]
What is a ROTH [0:10:27]
Capital Gains Explained [0:13:44]
Financial Advisors Can Help Maintain Your Accounts [0:16:16]
When Is It Not A Good Idea To Do A 401(k) [0:25:44]
Other Times To Not Use or Put Money In A 401(k) [0:33:27]
What Can You Do With Your 401(k) [0:38:26]
 
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
Jon: Hey everybody and welcome to the tenth episode of the Financial MD Show. This is the number one stop for getting direct tips, education, and knowledge on how to make smart personal financial decisions as a resident, so thanks for joining us today. We’re excited because we’re going to give you a twist on a very commonly recommended topic – that being 401(k)s – and, specifically, when is it not a good idea to utilize your 401(k) at work. We’re going to talk a little bit about the history of 401(k)s, how they came about. Trevor is going to go a little bit into the ROTH concept when that makes sense versus a pre-tax contribution to a ROTH, and then we’re going to talk about some things to watch out for. What are the biggest drags on investment returns in a 401(k) or any other account for that matter? Make sure you’re taking notes, rewind if you have to. We’ll be sure to post plenty of resources in the show notes afterwards, but this is going to be a good one to give you some practical tips on when this makes sense and when it doesn’t.
 
 
Jon: Okay, so today, we are talking about when it’s not a good idea to use a 401(k) and we’ll make that a general statement so we can apply it to a lot of situations and it’s not so specific as we do in the advice world especially when we’re making a podcast. Full disclosure, I say it at the end, but this is not necessarily financial advice. You got a couple of financial nerds talking about different topics that pertain to doctors and that’s all we’re doing today. We’re going to keep it fairly general and this helps us to get a lot of traction out of this 45 to 50 minutes.
 
What Is A 401(k)? When Was It Created? [0:03:00]
 
So let’s talk about a 401(k) a little bit first because of two things. Most people don’t know what that is. They know it has something to do with employee benefits and/or they know it’s a retirement at an employer, but I get this question all the time – what’s the difference between a 401(k) and a 403(b)? And I was like, “Oh, nothing for all intents and purposes.” For our situation here – for you, as the investor – nothing. It’s a little different for what they call the plan sponsor which is a fancy name for the employer. In general, let’s talk about what a 401(k) is or a 403(b). It was created back in the 70s with the ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. This created a lot of rules around employee benefits and especially rules around retirement. Back in the day, there were pensions. For years and years, you got a pension, which meant that the company would put away money for all their employees, typically into one big pool, and they had a record keeper that would kind of see how many credits different people had accumulated based on years of service and then how much they made, and then when they retired,

Ep 008 – The Best Way To Refinance Student Loans

Summary:
Refinancing: A Hot Button Issue [0:03:08]
Early Financial Services Firms [0:05:28]
Being Comfortable In Your Refinancing Decisions [0:08:35]
Current Refinance Rates: Fixed Versus Variable [0:15:14]
How To Refinance Student Loans [0:17:25]
Getting A Loan Will Not Cost You Anything [0:24:29]
Different Tiers of Saving (Buckets) the Ramit Sethi Way [0:28:44]
What Are Stable Coins? [0:30:25]
Final Thoughts on Refinancing [0:36:53]
 
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now, here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
 
Jon: You know, you’d think it doesn’t need to be long but probably like most of our topics, it will get longer than we think it will but I think we’ll be done by 9.
 
Trevor: All right, that sounds good.
 
Refinancing: A Hot Button Issue [0:03:08]
 
Jon: I’ll just try to keep track of the time but you know how it goes. We’ll just shoot to share about refinancing and see what type of rabbit trail that takes us and I think we’ll come out with some valuable info especially because this definitely is the hot button issue for residents, young attendings, as they’re getting to the point where they’re realizing they’re going to have to start paying the government 6.8 percent on a full payment and it’s such a good time to refinance. I think we’ll have plenty to cover. I have this conversation all the time – multiple times a week – with clients as they’re telling me, “How do I refinance? Should I refinance?” I mean they’re talking about it in questions and lectures or we’re talking about it with individual planning conversations, but as with many of our topics, Trevor, you can add some wisdom and experiences and I can certainly add experiences from this end seeing many, many residents go through the process and what I think are kind of the quick bullet points. This is one of the topics where we’re going to have some actionable take-home giveaway things so if you’re listening to this episode –which, if you heard that sentence, then I guess you’re listening to this episode – there will be a giveaway. We’ve created a refinancing recipe which is kind of just a brochure – a quick 2-page how-to – on how to refinance your student loans, because it’s not complicated, and so we break it down to something that you can really follow step by step and make sure you’re doing the proper steps and not forgetting any ingredients and you come out with a really nice recipe at the end. We’ll talk about that at the end, but I love how this has become a hot topic in the last 5 years because you and I were talking about Link Capital back in the day, right? Was that the first company that you looked at?
 
Early Financial Services Firms [0:05:28]
 
Trevor: Yeah. I’m trying to remember how I came across them actually. I was looking at the traditional as I think we had talked about this not too long ago, but I looked at the limited number. There were three main ones that I learned about on White Coat Investor and it was like Common Bond – how do you say this one, Darien Rowayton Bank.
 
Jon: Yeah, DRB.
 
Trevor: DRB. I think SoFi was just coming on in the scene and there was one other one – I think Common Bond, maybe.
 
Jon: I always get the impression SoFi was kind of...

Ep 007 – Getting Disability Insurance in Residency

Summary:
Trevor’s Background on Disability Insurance [0:03:34]
What Trevor Did On Getting Disability Insurance [0:09:04]
Catastrophic Plan – What Is This? [0:11:01]
Importance Of Own Occupation Rider [0:12:54]
Future Increase Option Rider/Guaranteed Benefit Update Rider [0:14:03]
What Makes A Good Insurance Company? [0:22:31]
Why Will You Get A Cost Of Living Or Inflation Rider [0:28:06]
Insurance As Part of A Financial Plan [0:33:30]
Diversifying Risk: Two Insurance Companies [0:36:15]
We Can Help You Get Disability Insurance At Financial MD [0:43:45]
 
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
Jon: Hey everyone! Welcome to the eighth episode of the Financial MD Show. Hope you’ve been having a good time listening through all the episodes and learning stuff. Today, we’ve got a fan favorite. This is a highly requested topic both through emails and correspondence, and after getting requests on podcast topics as well as just getting straight up questions in the webinars and lectures and things that we do. Disability insurance is what we’re talking about today, which is great, because I’m knowledgeable on it, Trevor is knowledgeable on it, and we’ve had some good and bad experiences, but there’s a lot of mixed information out there and we hoped to straighten some of that out today. We’ll give you some tips on how to buy it, how to shop for, what to look for, what not to do, and ultimately how do you feel you’ve done well and just protect your finances. Without further ado, here’s today’s show.
 
Jon: Obviously, there is a lot to talk about when it comes to disability insurance. Huge topic of conversation. When we do our workshops, all the time, disability insurance comes up almost without fail and rightly so. I think as financial planners at Financial MD here, we’re obviously big believers that that’s a big part of a financial plan. Today, I wanted us to riff a little bit on. Let’s talk about shady insurance agents or shady insurance practices a little bit and what to do if you’re just flat out, “I don’t want to necessarily pick this one person to help me find my options. I’m just going to go around educate myself and figure out which shops to go to get disability insurance.” Trevor, that’s what we’re talking to today. Part of the reason that we met is I think you did that more than anybody else that I had known up to that point, or residents anyway as far as taking initiative, getting to know the disability insurance world and saying, “I’m going to go figure this out.” Let’s start with that. Give me some background on what you did when you decided, “I need to get disability insurance.” How did that whole process even start?
 
Trevor’s Background on Disability Insurance [0:03:34]
 
Trevor: That’s a good question. When did I first look at it? I think I looked it up in medical school and I misunderstood and thought that I couldn’t get it at the time because I didn’t have income yet so I waited and start residency which is a bummer. I think I mentioned before that from lots of studying, of course, occasionally, your neck gets a little sore. You’re looking down all the time, whatever you were reading and you didn’t take a break,

Ep 006 – Where To Find Good Financial Education

Summary:
Resident Finance – Where To Start [0:05:04]
Mental Barriers on Financial Planning [0:09:29]
Second-guessed by People [0:13:44]
Do For One What You Wish You Could Do For Everyone [0:18:02]
Taking Action, Doing Something, Using Technology [0:21:32]
Make Reversible Decisions Quickly [0:26:43]
Great Price Offered At Financial MD [0:34:26]
Additional Information [0:38:25]
 
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
Jon: Hello and welcome to the seventh episode of the Financial MD Show. We got a great conversation for you today. Trevor and I talk a little bit where to find good financial education other than Financial MD. Obviously, there’s some great resources here that I could brag about, but we’re going to point you in some additional directions, ways to get information passively, ways to get educated from good sources in a timely manner that work for you, that are actionable, things that you can do passively between shifts, between patients. We know that things are busy but you still do need information. Unfortunately, what we find is that so many residents and medical students get ignored because they don’t have any money or it’s just not a focus on them and there’s so much more you can find on being an attending with money. We hope to point you on some good direction today, give you some actionable items. Of course, you’ll hear some humorous banter from me and Trevor, but without any further ado, here’s today’s show. Hope you enjoy it.
 
 
Jon: Welcome to today’s episode of the Financial MD Show. I have, as always, my partner in financial education, Dr. Trevor Smith.
 
Trevor: Hey, hey.
 
Jon: Hello, and myself, Jon Solitro, bringing you once again the latest and greatest in how to be a resident well and a lot of our stuff obviously applies to anyone, but we’re looking out for the younger guys – the medical students, the residents – as you’re getting through and trying to figure out what to do, what can you do, how to do it right. We can tell you some ways how to do it wrong too if you’re interested. For sure, that will come up. If you missed our last show where we talked about buying or renting, we talked about some mistakes and things we’ve learned in the process, so go back and check that out (Episode 5). Today, we’re going to talk a little bit more broadly about educating yourself. You’ve gone through undergrad, you may be in med school now, you may be in residency, but you’re starting to figure out and starting to hit home that, “Okay, I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m going to make money. I need to get smart about what to do with that money.” In Trevor’s case, for example, from an early age, Trevor was educating himself and trying to take some very proactive steps. We talked about in episode 1 how Trevor and I met and it was simply because he was one of those residents that was a bit of an anomaly in the sense that he was thinking about this stuff way ahead of most of his peers – good, bad, or indifferent – and we got connected because obviously I liked talking about it, he liked talking about it, and so we talked about it. He was one of the more knowledgeable residents on finances – personal finance,

Ep 005 – Buying a House During Residency

Summary:
Trevor’s Story: Finding A House During Residency [0:03:41]
Buy Or Rent? Which Is Which? [0:06:36]
Breaking Even On A House? [0:13:05]
Buying A House Is Mostly An Expense [0:15:38]
Trevor’s House During Residency [0:20:43]
Unexpected Problems Relating To Houses [0:30:30]
Can I Buy A House When I’m Already An Attending? [0:32:59]
Motivation To Buy Or Rent A House [0:36:40]
Roadmap: Values Based Financial Planning Approach [0:40:04]
 
 
Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.
 
Jon: Hello everyone and welcome to the fifth episode of the Financial MD Show. On today’s show, we dive into the concept of buying a house during residency. We start off by hearing a little bit of Trevor’s story and his experience during residency and med school and what he learned about buying versus renting and what he would do differently. I’ll give you a little clue: He’s got some regrets to share with us today. We then pivot to talking about when it is the right time to buy a house and how to buy that house. We talk a little bit about physician mortgages. Trevor goes into how his perspective has shifted which actually turns to go a little bit against conventional wisdom. We wrap up by talking through, is renting really worse than buying and what are the pros and cons of it and when in your career is the right time to buy a house, how to buy it right, and how to identify when it is a seller’s market versus a buyer’s market and how not to pay too much frankly. And so with that introduction, I hope you enjoy today’s episode of the Financial MD Show.
 
 
Jon: All right, welcome everyone. We are back again with the Financial MD Show with yours truly, Jon Solitro, and Dr. Trevor Smith. How’s it going, Trevor?
 
Trevor: Great! Having a good start to the week here.
 
Jon: Yes, it is Monday here in Financial MD land and somehow I feel slightly more dynamic with these big headphones on my head or it could go completely the other way where I’m like an NPR announcer. Anyway, we’ve got a great topic for you. I love talking about this particular topic because we do get a lot of questions on it and it’s more of a philosophical or more of how do you predict the near future is going to go, when we get asked the question of should we rent or buy during residency – we’ll talk about that first – and then we’ll talk a little bit about buying or renting when you get your first job because that’s a different concept as well. There are a lot of factors to consider when you’re buying versus renting. You’re getting out of medical school, you’ve been matched, you know where you’re going to be, and you start looking ahead maybe a few months before of where you’re going to live. Trevor, you came from U of M Med School, right?
 
Trevor’s Story: Finding A House During Residency [0:03:41]
 
Trevor: Yeah, that’s right. I grew up in West Michigan, went to undergrad there at Hope College, and then went to University of Michigan Medical School.
 
Jon: You then had to find a place in Royal Oak area because residency was at Beaumont?
 
Trevor: That’s right. Beaumont, now called Beaumont Health.
 
Jon: Okay, I call it Club Beaumont.
 

Ep 004 Investing for Residents

Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.