female doctor holding chart smiling at cameraWhile many medical professionals earn substantial salaries, they often face unusual financial pressures, too. Doctors, for instance, often begin making student loan payments on a resident’s salary. Licensed, practicing physicians must often contend with costly malpractice insurance premiums, hefty business expenses, and ever-changing trends, both within their discipline and healthcare as a whole.

Medical Professionals and Wealth Management

Physicians, dentists, and nurse practitioners often earn good salaries but have different long-term wealth management goals from professionals in other fields. Oftentimes, medical professionals must:

Navigate debt repayment

  • Medical, dental, and pharmacy schools often leave medical professionals with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Physicians in residency or who have just begun to practice often want to find the best way to resolve their student loans while enjoying the income they worked hard to achieve.

Plan for retirement

  • Most people plan on eventually retiring. However, medical professionals often follow unique career trajectories. Consider: many doctors begin putting money into investment retirement accounts while they are still residents. As your career progresses, you can begin re-allocating funds and assets in ways that best serve your personal goals, practice, and long-term aspirations.

Consider contingencies

  • If you’re a doctor, dentist, pharmacist, or osteopath, you have spent years in training. However, many medical specialties remain high-risk: just under half of all doctors face at least one lawsuit during their career. Fluctuating malpractice premiums, court expenses, and other unexpected expenses can throw a wrench in an otherwise well-considered wealth management plan.

How a Registered Financial Advisor Can Help You

Every medical provider is unique in terms of their practice, approach to patients, and career ambitions. However, most healthcare professionals are serious about finding the best long-term uses for their wealth. A registered financial advisor can help you create a comprehensive plan that will address and anticipate:

  • Your student debt—how to pay it off, how to budget, and how to invest in the meantime.
  • Your income and how it will change when you complete your residency, apply for a fellowship, or establish your own practice.
  • Your retirement plans and accounts, including consolidating old investment accounts and opening new ones. We also look at your employer’s options for retirement and investment matching.
  • Your strategies for preserving and continuing to build wealth, including investment strategies that go beyond your existing career and practice.

We can also help you determine the best time to retire and recommend retirement and investment savings strategies that help you now by reducing your annual and post-retirement tax obligations.

What to Look for in a Wealth Management Advisor

When you’re looking for a wealth manager or financial advisor, you should consider the following factors before committing:

  • Competence and experience. A wealth manager who has been in business for a long time is a professional who has managed to preserve their clients’ trust. Similarly, you will want an advisor who is familiar with your profession.
  • Communication. Some wealth managers just want to take your money and invest as they see fit. You should ask any prospective financial advisor how you can contact them and when they are available. After all, they are investing your money: they should be available for you whenever you need advice or wish to offer feedback.
  • Resources. Some firms may simply lack the resources or credentials needed to invest your wealth in certain ways or places. Ensure that your firm has the capacity to do what you need and the experience to do it effectively.

How Quraishi Law & Wealth Can Help

Quraishi Law & Wealth is owned and operated by licensed attorneys and registered wealth management professionals. We help our clients move money in ways that bring them profit, reduce their tax burden, and anticipate future changes in circumstances and situations.

Contact us to schedule your initial consultation today.