ESTATE PLANNING FOR PHYSICIANS & MEDICAL PRACTICES

Physicians often consider themselves personal and financial targets. They can be, but their biggest predators are not personal injury lawyers. The average physician is not likely to be successfully sued in excess of their reasonable medical malpractice limits. Such verdicts are actually very rare and nearly all could have been settled within the limits of the physician’s coverage. However, managed care and government-led initiatives and legislation to control health care costs have decreased physician compensation. Physicians need to carefully organize their practice entities and professional associations, and arrange financial security in a manner that is radically different from other professionals. To do so, physicians and their advisors must be well informed about available options of financial planning tools to choose the course that balances risk, cost, time, outcome and personal philosophy.

Physicians are most likely to lose wealth through divorce, bad investments, poor tax planning, faulty business planning or a combination thereof. The average physician usually can’t name a close colleague who was ruined in a medical malpractice lawsuit, but they can usually think of quite a few friends and professional associates who have lost more marital assets to ex-spouses, various investment schemes or a failed tax shelter. Most physicians are spending 40-50 percent of their time working for the IRS, but probably don’t take even one day per month to consider how they might reduce their tax liability.

Our firm has a long history of partnering with physicians and their medical practices of all specialties to provide comprehensive, creative and strategic plans that benefit the doctor, their practice and their families.