Jeffrey Segal, MD, JD

David B. Mandell, JD, MBA and Jason M. O’Dell, CWM

As authors of 4 books for physicians, including our latest, For Doctors Only: A Guide to Working Less & Building More, we have consulted with thousands of doctors of all specialties during the last decade. From this experience, we have become intimately familiar with the mistakes physicians make when working with their CPAs, attorneys, and other financial advisors. Whether it is in the area of tax, asset protection, retirement planning, or other areas, the result is almost always the same. We leave the meetings or conference calls asking ourselves, “How could this doctor get such [poor, uncreative, or just plain wrong] advice?” It would be laughable if it weren’t so troubling.

It is not surprising that physicians do not get the value they should out of their professional advisors. While the typical specialty physician has nearly 25,000 hours of training in his/her profession, there is a grand total of zero hours of training in business or financial issues related to the “business” of being a doctor. After learning how to utilize specialists in other areas of medicine, doctors receive no training in how to choose or evaluate the advisors whose advice and experience will be the backbone of the doctor’s financial plan for his entire career.

Doctors lack the spare time and training to do their own planning and have literally no training on how to find and evaluate the right specialists to assist them, so it is no wonder that most are ill-served by their professional advisors. To be honest, it is actually surprising when we meet a physician who is financially savvy or is properly advised by a team of professional advisors. In our experience, fewer than 5% of physicians are properly advised by a professional team.

The Two Fatal Flaws Of Physician-Advisor Relationships