insurance Archives - NonClinical Physicians

The Amazing Field of Life Insurance Medicine – A PNC Classic from 2018

John Jurica — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 11:32:48 +0000

Interview with Dr. Judy Finney – 365

In this podcast episode replay, I'm speaking with Dr. Judy Finney, an interventional cardiologist who transitioned to the amazing field of life insurance medicine in 2012. She describes her career journey and provides insights for those considering this unique career.

At the time of the interview, she was serving as an Associate Medical Director. Since then, she worked for 2 years as Medical Director and moved to Vice President for a major mutual insurance company earlier this year.

Our Show Sponsor

We're proud to have a NEW EPISODE SPONSOR: Dr. Armin Feldman's Prelitigation Pre-trial Medical Legal Consulting Coaching Program.

The Medical Legal Consulting Coaching Program will teach you to build your own nonclinical consulting business. Open to physicians in ANY specialty, completing Dr. Armin Feldman’s Program will teach you how to become a valued consultant to attorneys without doing med mal cases or expert witness work.

His program will enable you to use your medical education and experience to generate a great income and a balanced lifestyle. Dr. Feldman will teach you everything, from the business concepts to the medicine involved, to launch your new consulting business during one year of unlimited coaching.

For more information, go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/mlconsulting or send an email to armin@mdbizcon.com.

For Podcast Listeners

John hosts a short Weekly Q&A Session on any topic related to physician careers and leadership. Each discussion is posted for you to review and apply. Sometimes all it takes is one insight to take you to the next level of your career. Check out the Weekly Q&A and join us for only $5.00 a month.
If you want access to dozens of lessons dedicated to nonclinical and unconventional clinical careers, you should join the Nonclinical Career Academy MemberClub. For a small monthly fee, you can access the Weekly Q&A Sessions AND as many lessons and courses as you wish. Click the link to check it out, and use the Coupon Code “FIRSTMONTHFIVE” to get your first month for only $5.00.
The 2024 Nonclinical Summit is over. But you can access all the fantastic lectures from our nationally recognized speakers, including Dr. Dike Drummond, Dr. Nneka Unachukwu, Dr. Gretchen Green, and Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Go to Nonclinical Summit and enter Coupon Code “30-OFF” for a $30 discount.

[From the original post in 2018:]

Today I present my interview with Dr. Judy Finney. I've been hoping to get an expert in Life Insurance Medicine on the show for many months. I was able to link up with Dr. Finney after seeing her quoted in a blog post by Heather Fork at Doctors Crossing.

Judy completed undergraduate studies in zoology, and medical school, at Michigan State. She completed an internal medicine residency and fellowships in cardiology and interventional cardiology and became board-certified in all three disciplines. She built a private cardiology practice, then opted to work for a large group for the final 3 1/2 years of her clinical career.

Six years before our interview she moved into life insurance medicine. She works full-time in the amazing field of life insurance medicine. However, she also finds time to work as a speaker and mentor at the annual SEAK Nonclinical Careers for Physicians Conference each October.

Pursuing a Career in the Amazing Field of Life Insurance Medicine

Judy does a great job during our discussion addressing several issues:

Her career path from interventional cardiologist to full-time Associate Medical Director;
Her advice on how to increase your odds of getting a job in life insurance medicine;
The personality traits that are most compatible with such a career;
Some of the adjustments that will need to be made when pivoting to this type of position;
Resources that can be helpful for the prospective life insurance medical director, such as:

Summary

By following Judy's advice, you can accelerate your pursuit of a career in the amazing field of life insurance medicine. I hope you found this episode helpful. If so, please subscribe to the podcast on your favorite smartphone app or iTunes. Join me next week for another episode of Physician Nonclinical Careers.

If you liked today’s episode, please tell your friends about it and SHARE it on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Right click here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

Email Download New Tab

Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 365

The Amazing Field of Life Insurance Medicine - A PNC Classic from 2018

- Interview with Dr. Judy Finney

Jurica: It's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Judy Finney to the PNC podcast. Hello, Dr. Finney.

Finney: Hello.

Jurica: Thanks for joining me today. This is going to be great because I've been trying to find someone to talk to about the life insurance industry and the physician positions in that industry since I heard about it about a year ago. And I came across an article by Heather Fork and I think she was quoting you in the article.

So I thought you would be perfect, a perfect person to answer the questions for our audience today.

Finney: Well, that sounds great. I met Heather at a conference for physicians who are contemplating career change called SEEK and so I have really run into her the last several years annually and we talk all the time about positions including in my field.

Jurica: That is just perfect because my audience is pretty much the same as the people that would tend to come to the SEEK conference. So let's just get into this then. Why don't you tell us first about what it is that you do in your position as a life insurance physician, if that's what I would call it, but you can explain that to us if you would.

Finney: Okay. Well, I'm employed by Allstate, which is actually a combined insurance company and it really does a lot of property and casualty, home and auto, but they always have had a certain portion of their business in life insurance. And in fact that end of the business is actually growing for Allstate.

So my boss was actually in his position, I think for about five or six years before he hired me as the second physician and we're now up to four physicians who work in the life insurance medical department at Allstate. And primarily what we do is in underwriting, which is basically a risk assessment of potential mortality for people that are applying for life insurance policies. There's other physician positions at other organizations that sometimes do a little more than that.

They might work in claims, which are things that need to be assessed after the fact of a death, or they might work in underwriting research and policy or writing reinsurance manuals, but at Allstate we don't necessarily do those functions. We are very concentrated in underwriting. So as my job basically involves a lot of communication with underwriters who are a professional group of people.

In Allstate, they usually number around 90 to 100 people scattered across the country who are doing sort of preliminary review of life insurance applications. And that review would actually include some non-medical things, but it also includes medical things. And so I serve, as do my fellow physicians, as resources for those underwriters.

They would tend to send us cases which are more difficult or more complex or have more medical problems instead of being very simple. They're pretty experienced, so they tend to be able to handle the simple ones themselves. But the more complex things get, the more they might need some medical review.

And especially if something was rare or unusual, or it took a lot of what I guess what I would call weighing and measuring, that would be the kind of case that would come to the medical director in the life insurance underwriting department at Allstate. And that case would involve their review. So they make an assessment of the medical records and send me their thought process plus the actual medical records themselves.

My job would be to review all of that and then I have various resources I can use in order to help judge mortality risk and I would send back an answer to that underwriter. So I would assess the risk, but I would also assess their evaluation. And thereby, case by case, I'm literally doing one-on-one education and training.

So I would say that portion of my job takes up about 50 to 60 percent of my time on a day-to-day basis. And about, I would say, 20 to 30 percent of my time is spent doing other things that are also educational, but they're not based on a single case. So for instance, I might give a webinar over the computer or through Skype or other sources in which I would teach about a specific topic.

Now, I happen to be a cardiologist, so I will tell you that they very often ask me to speak about cardiology topics, you know, and this might be hypertension or coronary disease or coronary calcium scores or the tiny important details in echocardiograms, but many times it's often in non-cardiology topics. For instance, multiple sclerosis or anemia or adult survivors of childhood cancer. Those are all topics that I've given various talks on in the past.

And then the smaller fraction of the rest of my day or my week would be to serve as a resource to other departments in the corporation. It might be the legal department or it might be the underwriting research and policy department or perhaps one of the executives in the c-suite who has a particular interest because they've read something in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times and they want a medical assessment as to how this impacts our industry and specifically our corporation. So my job involves a lot of reading, answering, communicating, educating, that kind of thing, but it might differ as to who I'm doing it to and for and at what level of detail.

Jurica: Of those things that you're doing, are there certain parts that you find particularly satisfying or interesting?

Finney: Well, I actually like this job quite a bit. And what I would say is I always did like teaching, including when I was a clinician. So it didn't surprise me to have the teaching parts of this be very satisfying.

But I think I also was a person who really, a physician who really liked the puzzle, figuring out the puzzle. So to have cases that I'm thinking about, reviewing, and then doing what I mentioned before, the weighing and the measuring, in a lot of ways that whole function is part of being a clinician all the time. All the time you're taking in information and you're weighing risks and benefits and applying it to your own personal experience and your knowledge of the medical literature and trying to come to some conclusion.

So those are really transferable skill sets and that kind of thing is the same kind of function that you do. It's just that you do it from the lens of mortality risk assessment in various medical impairments.

Jurica: Very interesting. So it's clearly a non-clinical job, but like a lot of our non-clinical jobs that really, there's a lot of overlap with what you learn during your education and training as a cardiologist and interventional cardiologist and so forth. So that's good to know.

But maybe we can step back for a minute and you can explain sort of how did you make that transition and why from a practicing cardiologist?

Finney: Well, I'm not sure everybody should do it my way. Maybe that's one thing I should say from the start. I sort of did my transition in a more desperation mode and a setup to here mode and I don't always think that's really a really great way to make decisions.

It's just that it worked out for me. But you know trusting to luck may not be really the right way to handle it. I was actually one of those people that really truly loved my job, loved my field and if you really had asked either myself or anybody that knew me during all the years that I was in cardiology, which were quite a few, they would have told you that I probably would be one of those people that would die with my boots on still practicing.

And I would have told you that also. It's just that the last few years that I was in practice and I basically stopped doing clinical practice in September of 2012. I found like many physicians find is that they're really not in control of their destiny anymore and they also what they signed up for is not exactly what was happening.

And so it was I think a gradual transition over time and I did try to solve it in other ways. I had my own practice. I was in private practice and I created a group and I grew the group to a pretty good size and my first assessment of this was that I was simply burnt out from being both very administrative in my practice as well as clinically involved.

And I was just burning the candle at both ends. And so I thought I would solve it by getting out of my own practice and moving to another actually larger cardiology practice where I could devote myself to just being clinical. And I lasted in that for about three and a half years, but it sort of became clear to me that the same challenges that I faced in my practice, many of which I think were external to the practice, they were still affecting this other larger practice as well.

And so I sort of gradually came to the conclusion that it wasn't just me or just my circumstance, but it was a larger issue. And yet I felt that I didn't really want to just retire. I felt like I still had more to give and I really enjoyed using my brain and I just didn't want to work 100 to 110 or 20 hours a week.

I just felt like it was sort of unfair to ask me to do that. But I couldn't really find a good way in cardiology, in the city I was in with the circumstances that existed, to downsize. So that's when I became more open-minded to looking around to other things.

And I was still working at the time and I kept looking and looking and, you know, to be honest, feeling more and more desperate. So one of the ways that I looked is I actually asked a couple of friends that went all the way back to medical school who had made the transition to life insurance medicine years before. I asked both of them if they thought I could do that job and would I be good at it and would it be good for me?

And of course because they knew me, they could give me good honest assessments and they said, yes, this would be great. It would be great for the field and great for you, etc. And I had had one helpful experience, which was some five years before that I was asked to be a guest speaker on a cardiology topic at one of their regional meetings.

So I had met a whole bunch of people in life insurance medicine already and I didn't just stay for my own talk. I stayed for the entire meeting and I got a chance to meet, you know, 40, 50 people who were in the field and they were singularly happy. so it impressed me and I think it just kind of sat in the back of my brain.

I kept thinking, when's the last time I've been in a room full of happy doctors? And that's really why the idea of insurance medicine came. And then when it did, I contacted my friends and tried to sort it out.

Now I will tell you that I didn't, you know, despite making the decision that this was a good place to go into or to transition into, I still didn't get any interviews for probably six to eight months. And so I put my resume out. They tried to help me a little.

They told me some things I could do to prepare myself a little better and become sort of a better candidate. But because the people in the field are pretty happy, it's not like there is enormous turnover in the field. I think there will be some and I have spoken about this and written about it before.

It's because a lot of the people in the field are now in the age group where one would expect retirement. But there's also some changes that are happening in the field. Some companies are buying other companies.

So there's some contraction. And there is some automation of processes. So because of that, I'm not totally sure that what I anticipated five years ago about the number of retirements.

I'm not sure that that will really be exactly the same. It might be less.

Jurica: Okay.

Finney: I will tell you my experience is that most people who go into this enjoy it a lot. And so they don't really leave. And they don't necessarily leave voluntarily.

Or if they do, they just leave to go to another company and do the same thing. So that's one key sign that people are generally happy with the field, you know.

Jurica: Yeah, in my conversations with a few people I have spoken with, there's been a pretty much a consensus that most physicians in this field are happy with their careers and glad they made that choice. I want to go back for one second. You know, you're talking about how your colleagues or friends said, well, hey, you know, you'd probably be good at what we're doing.

Do you feel like there's certain traits that would be either favorable towards working in that sort of position or traits that would say, no, maybe something else would be better? Any ideas on that?

Finney: Yes, I think so. I mean, I get asked this question sometimes by physicians who come to me just like I went to my friends. And what I would say is that you have to understand that a great deal of this work involves reading and then typing back answers and communicating one-on-one with people.

So it's a production-oriented environment. And also in general, I would say the person who does this as a physician needs to understand that they are in a whole new environment, a corporate environment, in which the physician is not the so-called buck stops here final arbiter of many things, including individual case decisions. And that transition, I think, would be hard for some people.

When I first made the transition and I was working for a while in life insurance medicine, I kind of wondered to myself, out of all the cardiologists I knew, and maybe especially interventional cardiologists, how many did I know that I thought would actually be able to make a successful transition where they weren't the king of the ship anymore? And I think the number might be small. So I think it helps to be able to have a mindset that you're part of a team and you're a smaller cog in the really large wheel.

So what I would say is that's a quality that you would either have to have or develop. I think that you also should understand that you're only one piece of the puzzle. You are the medical piece.

You are the medical expert that people are consulting for your medical knowledge. But you are not the only person that is participating in this decision. Because this is a business and the business is to sell insurance policies.

So there always has to be some give and take on a lot of the non-medical factors that go into the decision of whether to extend an offer. So that's one thing. I would also say that most people don't understand that although they may know a lot about medicine, they probably don't know much about actuarial science.

And although you don't have to become an actuary, I think you have to. This is a very difficult field to make a sudden leap into from one day doing your clinician job to the next day suddenly going into this field and being able to do the kind of work you need to do and communicate with the people you need to communicate with if you don't have some background knowledge about insurance and actuaries and their vocabulary and how they do their calculations, etc. So I did not find that I had to become an actuary, but I had to learn how to think like one and I had to learn how they come up with some of the things that they come up with, etc.

So you can't do that in a day. And what I would say is because the jobs are fewer and because the competition is growing because the field is so pleasant, it's helpful to distinguish yourself by making some moves to get yourself a little bit more trained or familiar.

Jurica: Okay, so great segue. So your story is unique like everybody's, but now that you have this experience and you're looking back and people are coming to you, so what would be sort of the ideal way to prepare oneself and position oneself to be attractive to an employer?

Finney: Well, I think I will talk about some specific background for life insurance. But one thing I would say which people should understand is that it's very difficult to find a part-time job in this field. They almost all are full-time jobs.

But what you can do, I think, is develop what I call transferable skills. So there are many jobs that are in similar fields that have transferable skills and many more of those can be part-time. So that's one way somebody who's working as a clinician but wants to make a transition could kind of dip their toe in the water and just make absolutely certain they like what they're doing, they can perform, they can live within the parameters, that kind of thing.

For instance, people who do utilization review or quality assurance review in which you are given cases, you have to make assessments, you have to give written responses, you have to perform your duties within certain project time frames or turnaround time frames. Those are all things where you can demonstrate very similar skills and performance and see if you like how that goes, how that day goes, and see if it suits you. Those are fields that have many more part-time and project limited opportunities.

So you literally could sort of demonstrate your skills. So I often advise people to try to do something like that and put that right near the top of their resume when they're looking into life insurance because that's the kind of thing where people will sit up and pay attention and realize that you've gone the extra mile to try to train in the skill set. In terms of education, there is sort of a bible of life insurance medicine and although it's expensive, I think it's really worth purchasing if you're serious.

I got my bible through Amazon and so it's available. It's called Brackenridge's Medical Selection of Life Risks. It's this enormous textbook and the whole first half of the textbook is really demonstrating life insurance as a history, how it came about, and how people did the calculations and some real basic things about mortality and morbidity calculations, how actuaries think, terminology, and then the whole back half of the textbook is very disease and impairment specific.

So once you get the basics, how do you apply them to various disease states that we see? When we read medical records, so that's one thing. Another thing is there's a whole formal organization for medical directors, which is national, which is called AIM, A-A-I-M, American Academy of Insurance Medicine, and it is national.

There are some international people that come to it, but it is mainly intended for physicians in the United States who work for various insurance companies, primarily life insurance, but some disability insurance and some critical illness insurance. And so we have an annual meeting for AIM that happens every year. Most years are two and a half days long.

CME credits can be earned and then every third year is what we call our triennial meeting and that meeting is five days long. And once again, you can earn CME credits. There's a whole lot of people in the field from many, many companies who come to that so you can make contacts.

It is not limited to people that are already in the field. And usually at least 50 percent or more of our speakers are actual clinicians who practice at universities and come and give us updates in various medical fields. Because one of the things is you have to keep yourself updated in what's going on in clinical medicine in order to be able to read medical records and tell the importance of various things that you're reading.

So going to one of these national meetings, I think is very useful both for contacts and for information. We also have regional meetings that take place. For instance, this particular year, I'm the president of the Midwestern Medical Directors Association or MMDA.

And that is a regional association for life insurance companies that are generally in the Midwestern state. And we have a meeting every May and so there are probably 40 plus people who attend our meeting who are medical directors, but we also are open to people who aren't in the industry yet. And we usually have, I would say, anywhere from two to five people that are coming to our regional meeting and making contacts and seeing what kinds of educational opportunities we have, etc.

There's also a national underwriting association, which is you know really meant for underwriters, but they do an enormous amount of very basic training both online and with textbooks, etc. And they're called LOMA, L-O-M-A. And Life Office Management Association is what that stands for.

And they have a website www.loma.org So they also provide underwriting type training and if you're totally green and don't know anything about underwriting, they have some very basic courses that would be able to bring you up to speed and they're not terribly expensive, etc. Another very useful thing for people that are truly serious is that AIM has a specific basic mortality course that they advertise. And the course is very interesting and it pairs you with a mentor and takes you through some mortality calculations with homework over about a six-month period with feedback back and forth between you and the mentor.

And then it culminates in a one to two-day meeting, which is piggybacked on to one of the national or regional meetings where you can have a review and then take a test and get a certificate. So doing things like this in terms of reading, courses, meetings, and especially that basic mortality course, those are all ways that people could prepare themselves so that they look appealing to a hiring manager who is looking to hire somebody who's never been in the field before.

Jurica: Well, that's a lot of really good information and it would take someone hours and hours just to start looking into some of those things. I will provide show notes, links to the various organizations and so forth that you've mentioned. So that'll be fantastic.

I know the listeners are going to appreciate that. Sounds good. Now, let's see.

Any other thoughts or I guess one of the questions I had is whether there's some kind of newsletter or any kind of journal that is produced either from one of those organizations or just in general that addresses this topic?

Finney: We used to actually have a journal that was literally published, but now it is published electronically on the AIM website. So it's called JIM, J-I-M, Journal of Insurance Medicine, and comes out quarterly. And you can get at it through the AIM website and I'm sure I'll provide these things to you so that you can have links.

In general, you know, you have to be an AIM member, but people who are not yet in the insurance medicine industry can in fact become an AIM member just like they can through the MMDA that I mentioned.

Jurica: Awesome. That's great. Well, let's see.

We're getting close to the end here. I did want to circle back a little bit because you mentioned the SEEK meeting and I believe you're scheduled to speak again this year. I didn't know if you want to talk a little bit about that.

Finney: Sure. I think SEEK is a very useful thing for physicians considering transition to go to. I will tell you that I was unaware that they existed before I made my transition, but I wish I had known about them.

Because one of the things that astonished me the most the first time I went was how many fields are out there and how many non-clinical opportunities there are for physicians. It just was astonishing to me. So I really got invited to go there because a hospitalist that I knew provided my name to them as somebody in life insurance that he thought would be a good speaker for them.

So they called me. So that very first year I basically gave a 45-minute talk kind of like this all about life insurance medicine with some slides and talked about, you know, making the transition and what did it take and what was involved that kind of thing. So they have those kind of opportunities at SEEK where people in particular fields already come and talk about how they made their transition and what's involved in their field.

And usually attendees can pick and choose which one of these various talks they would like to go to according to their level of interest. But they also have an opportunity which I've also participated in now which is kind of called mentorship in which you sit at a table in a large ballroom and you do almost like a speed dating kind of experience in which people sign up to have little individual 15-minute visits with a person in a particular field and they talk back and forth about their own personal experience. They get to ask questions.

So you kind of have a one-on-one interview with people who are interested in your field. So I've done both the talks and the mentorship. I tend to create a handout for mine because it's really hard to cover everything in 15 minutes and because I think it's useful for people to have something they can walk away with.

Jurica: Very nice. No, I bet they really appreciate that and I have been to one of the meetings and it is an eye-opener the first time you go just to see so many people interested in change and so many different careers out there that you maybe hadn't even imagined. So I bet they're very happy to have someone such as yourself to be able to talk to the insurance industry because I know they like to have people that are pretty experienced and knowledgeable and can give some practical advice.

So that's very helpful. All right. Well, I think we're going to wrap it up then here. There might be some questions. Would there be any way that a listener could contact you or track you down?

Finney: Sometimes they will come to me through our national organization, AAIM. We actually have a kind of a mechanism at the national organization in which the secretary for it maintains a file of members like myself who are willing to have a one on one phone conversation with people about life insurance medicine. And what they try to do is they try to match the caller with the person already in the field. So, for instance, if somebody is a sub specialist. you know, I might take them on. Whereas other people who are in the field who are more in primary care originally, they might try to match them with that. Or sometimes they'll match them with people geographically or whatever. So these really aren't people that are designed to find you a job, but more somebody that you can relate to, you know, who has agreed to be a participant.

Jurica: Okay, so if they were to go to the website for AIM. they'd be able to find a contact form of some sort or trying to get linked up with someone who could answer some questions or mentor them.

Finney: Right. There's a secretariat who does all of our administrative work and she is well familiar with this program.

Jurica: Okay, good. Alright, well, I thank you again very much for joining us today. You've answered a lot of questions and given us a lot to think about if we're interested in this area. You did a great job and I'm going to be following up on some of this myself and mentioning it to some of my colleagues who might be interested

Finney: Sounds great.

Jurica: All right, Judy, thank you very much again and I guess then I'll just say goodbye for now.

Finney: Okay, goodbye John.

Scroll back to top

Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.

powered by

Disclaimers:

Many of the links that I refer you to, and that you’ll find in the show notes, are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you, that I have personally used or am very familiar with.

The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career.

The post The Amazing Field of Life Insurance Medicine – A PNC Classic from 2018 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Physician Advocate and Insurance Broker Shares Her Expertise – 313

John Jurica — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 12:30:02 +0000

Interview with Dr. Stephanie Pearson

In today's episode, Dr. Stephanie Pearson returns to the podcast to the podcast to share her inspirational journey as an insurance broker. Her passion for safeguarding healthcare professionals' financial well-being grew out of her personal experiences following an on-the-job injury.

First interviewed in February 2018, she explained then why securing one's income through life and disability insurance is so important. This time, Dr. Pearson delves deeper into her career path. She shares how she grew her business. And she comments on potential careers as a medical director.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

PearsonRavitz's Evolution

In Episode 23, Dr. Stephanie Pearson explained the reasons behind her departure from clinical medicine, and how her company, PearsonRavitz came to be.

Since then, PearsonRavitz has undergone significant growth. As an insurance broker, Stephanie continues to educate medical students and physicians about the devastating effects that an injury can have on a young professional's life.

Her business website features educational materials addressing various disability and life insurance concerns. The platform is designed to promote informed conversations and interactions.

PearsonRavitz is licensed in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The company's mission is to provide education and support, tailoring discussions to individual needs.

Mistakes Unveiled by Physician Insurance Broker

Dr. Pearson highlighted mistakes physicians make regarding disability insurance. Becoming disabled without proper insurance coverage can lead to a financial burden on the physician's family. This could potentially result in the need to sell assets like their home or pull children out of school.

Inadequate Coverage for Work-Related Injuries: Work-related injuries may not be covered by an employer's group policy.
Delaying Insurance Acquisition: Waiting too long to secure disability insurance can result in higher costs and reduced coverage. Acquiring insurance during training can often come with discounts and better terms compared to waiting until one becomes an attending physician.
Self-Prescribing Medications: When physicians prescribe medications for themselves or ask physician friends to prescribe medications, it may affect claim eligibility.
Unclear Policy Language: Some insurers use language that limits coverage, leading to misunderstandings during claims.
Relying on Group Policies: Relying solely on employer-offered group insurance policies can be problematic. Group policies designed for a large workforce often include limitations, inferior coverage, or language that does not benefit physicians.
Dropping Coverage. Physicians may believe that disability insurance is no longer needed once they move into a nonclinical role. In reality, if you and your family depend on your income, it is important to continue the insurance coverage.

Summary

Stephanie's journey demonstrates that with resilience and adaptation, we can redefine our career trajectory. Moreover, her commitment to educating and assisting fellow physicians provides a valuable service. And she finds personal satisfaction as an educator and insurance broker.

Dr. Pearson, her partner, Scott Ravitz, and members of their team are available to help with your life and disability insurance needs. Check out their resources at PearsonRavitz. And to reach one of them to personally discuss your situation, you can arrange for a 45-minute live consultation right here.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and leave a review on iTunes.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

Email Download New Tab

Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 313

Physician Advocate and Insurance Broker Shares Her Expertise

- Interview with Dr. Stephanie Pearson

John: Today's returning guest is unique in several ways. First of all, her reason for leaving clinical medicine is not the most common. And then the career that she chose and has been doing for I think about eight years or so is also different from most. So, let's welcome Dr. Stephanie Pearson to today's show. Hi Stephanie.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Hey, Dr. John. How are you? Thank you for having me back.

John: I'm very good. I was mentioning before we started that I was looking back over old episodes and I thought there were at least a few really good guests that would make an excellent repeat guest. I thought I have to see if I can get you on and see what you've been doing. So, I'm really happy you're here with me today.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Thanks. I'm honored to be back.

John: All right. Well, let's get into what's unique about you. Start with your story of how and why you left clinical medicine.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: I will give you the super quick story. I am an OB-GYN by training. And unfortunately, during a difficult patient delivery, I sustained an injury to my shoulder. And that was kind of the beginning of the end. I had a torn labrum. It did not heal. I developed a frozen shoulder. I had surgery. They said I'd be back to work in 12 weeks. And last week was actually my 10 year anniversary away from clinical medicine, not that I'm counting. And I learned a lot the hard way about disability and life insurance. And the rest is kind of history.

John: We don't think of this when we're going into practice. And many of us, we make a lot of mistakes when it comes to covering that scenario. But I will just mention that I had two physicians that I knew of when I was in practice or a CMO at the hospital. One injured his elbow and he ended up not ever being able to do anesthesiology again. And then another really good friend surgeon who developed some visual problems. It was well into his career, I think it was in 20 years or so. And they were not correctable. And so, he became totally disabled for his job of doing surgery.

So, what did you find out after this happened? That's kind of what inspired you to move in a different direction, obviously.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Yeah. I found out that the group benefit that we had through our employer, in fine print, did not cover work-related injuries.

John: Wow.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: And I got flatly denied and they said I would've been better off had I fallen off my bike. And it was basically getting kicked in the stomach instead of kicked in the shoulder. Because had I not really allowed myself to get kicked, there'd be a problematic delivery. Maybe a baby that was not fully intact and they'd be spending millions defending me in court. And it was just a very quick "Nope, we can't do it."

And then to add insult to injury, my workman's comp claim actually got declined at first, or denied at first because they said while an injury occurred, my frozen shoulder was idiopathic or better my fault because I continued to work while I was injured, which is true. The injury happened in December of 12 and I worked until August of 13. And I figured out how to compensate. I had an orthopedist who told me I should be able to do my job. I put my head down and figured out how to use my arms in different ways and get other people to do what I needed done until it reached a pinnacle point where I felt like I was not practicing safe medicine, that it wasn't ethical anymore.

I had to sue the state. And that took 14 months, three court appearances at which one, an occupational person said that I could be a billing secretary because I had the aptitude to learn codes. I ended up settling because I was not in a very good mental space.

I also found out that the private policy that I got, that I thought I did everything right was not actually right. And it was purely a lack of education and not knowing what I didn't know. And so, I kind of threw myself at the topic because I wanted to know more. And that led to me wanting to share my story and trying to get other physicians not to make the same mistakes I made.

And then moving forward in the trajectory, at this time, I was actually trying out other things. I didn't land on this initially. I had done some medical malpractice work. I had done some medical editing, some biotech consulting. And what ended up happening was I was giving these lectures to area residents and people started asking for my help. And I was like, "Huh, maybe I have stumbled onto something." And so, I went and got myself licensed and we started an insurance company out of our house.

John: Yeah. That's not the first thing I would think in terms of "Wow, go into insurance." But it was such a natural. As I think back about this when you told me this the first time you're on the podcast, because what you told me then was also something you became very passionate about because you knew there were so many other physicians who were at risk.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Yeah.

John: Tell us a little bit more than how that business started because you had to start a business. It wasn't just becoming an insurance broker, right?

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Oh no.

John: It's a whole thing.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: I learned a lot on the go. Fortunately, my husband is my biggest cheerleader, we're partners now in business as well. But he helped with all the backend, creating the LLC, making sure that I had errors and omissions insurance. He really took care of a lot of the backend so that I could focus on what we thought I did well which was educating and meeting people and doing that piece.

At the same time, the broker who was my initial broker was not super helpful. A friend of a friend who's now my business partner, the other side of PearsonRavitz, he had reached out to me because someone had reached out to him. And we realized through a weird small world connection, our families were pretty intertwined. And I had a lot of help in the beginning from an industry standpoint.

I wasn't necessarily starting from point A. I kind of started somewhere in the middle, as far as having the right connections to the insurance companies, getting introduced to the right people. And so, we started kind of separately because he was at a life insurance company. And at a certain point when we both realized that things were taking off in a way that neither of us could have ever predicted that it was time to either, "Okay, we're really going to join forces and do this, or we need to part you do life insurance, I'll do my disability insurance and go from there."

And we decided to join forces because we both have different strengths that we could bring to the table. And ergo PearsonRavitz was created six years ago, June. So, I was doing it by myself, maybe a year, year and a half.

John: Okay. And if I remember correctly, you were doing a lot of presentations trying to educate people. A lot of it was free, right? It was med students, residents, other physicians who heard your story. Now all that demand has been met. Nobody has to listen, nobody needs that information anymore.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Everyone needs the information still. And I'll say COVID actually helped with that in that everybody realized that you don't need to be in person. And so, I love talking to people in person. You feed off their energy. It's a very different dynamic. However, traveling is expensive and giving up the time around it is expensive. And now being able to plug in a one hour lecture just as part of my day, like if I was speaking to one person, it's really expanded our reach in being able to get to people nationwide.

John: And do you do sales nationwide also so you can meet with an individual?

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Yes.

John: And walk through the process?

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Yes.

John: I remember vividly. I had a friend, he's actually deceased, but close friend who was a broker for a large insurance company. And he sold a lot of disability. And I remember him sitting me down and explaining this to me. About an hour into it I still didn't understand everything there was in there, riders on this and that. And I trusted him. I'd never had to access it, but I just felt really comfortable after getting that in place, knowing that if something happened.

Why don't you explain why this is almost when you're young more important than life insurance? That's kind of how I look at it personally. What do you think about that?

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Oh, I totally agree. If you look at national statistics, and I always say to take the national statistics with a grain of salt because they don't specifically break out physicians. But according to the Association of Americans with Disabilities, you have about a one in four chance of having a disability that takes you out of work for at least six months during your working career.

And then if you look at some of the ergonomics data that's been coming out doctors do know better than guys working on the roads.

And so, I used to think that the number was a bit skewed. Now that I'm seeing some of this other interesting data come through, maybe it's not as skewed as I thought it was. And I know that there are lots of people out there who don't know anyone who's ever gone out on disability. And I also know physicians who know upwards of dozens of docs that have gone out.

And so, I think that once somebody hears a compelling story or their partner suddenly has X, Y, Z, then it becomes a big deal. Going back to your why, aside from the increased risk of disability over death, which is also true when you're younger. When you're younger, it's less expensive. Hopefully you're healthier so you can get a more robust policy. If you do it while you're in training, there are training discounts that exist that aren't there if you wait. I got mine as an attending. I don't remember getting taught about it. If we did, I tuned it out. And so, I ended up qualifying for less. And it was more expensive.

John: There's another thing I think you may have told me last time, which is maybe morbid in a way. But if you become disabled, there's a good chance you'd become a burden on your family rather than a salary generator. And that would make me, if I had several kids and was married and all of a sudden, I don't know how we would deal with that if we didn't have disability insurance.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: We would've been in a really hard place. We would've had to sell our house. And admittedly I was underinsured. I had it. We didn't have to sell our house, but we would've if I didn't have it. We would've had to pull our kids out of private preschool. I know. #FirstWorldProblem. But these are the things that we do. And that is part of our decision in who and what profession we're going to have.

And my husband at the time was a flight nurse and was able to pick up a ton of extra shifts. While he was kind of dealing with a lot of our financial stuff, not only did I have the black cloud of "I'm not bringing in what I kind of thought said, I agreed that I'd bring into the family. Now I'm home alone with toddlers that I can't pick up." Because at this point, my left arm is not working great.

And now I felt like I'm not a physician. I'm not being a great wife, I'm not being a great mom. I'm really not a good housekeeper. And it was really dark for a little bit. And had I been properly insured, a lot of that could have been different. If he was around more, if we had that piece of stability, then we could focus on the other stuff. But that was our first issue that we really needed to deal with. I didn't want to sell our house. I didn't want to have to tell our kids that they had to leave school. And it just would've made life so much easier. I'm so passionate about this and don't want anybody else making the mistakes I made.

John: Well, I'm obviously convinced. There's just certain things that insurance is almost a no-brainer. There's some things I think that people insure that I question, but this really prevent coverage for that is one of the givens.

The one mistake that people make, whether it's physicians or anyone else, particularly highly paid and compensated people, I think have more to lose in a sense. Or if you went through eight years, or nine years, or 15 years of training and you owe a ton of money that you're thinking you're going to be paying that off in the future and you become disabled. And so, my second part of my question about mistakes is what other mistakes?

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: I truly think that the two biggest mistakes that people run into, without sounding trite, is waiting too long, is definitely number one. Number two is docs who write themselves prescriptions or have their friends write their prescriptions in thinking it's not a big deal. I can't get to my doc. We're all doctors, we can all call things in.

And unfortunately, it's really bad behavior from an insurance standpoint. They look at it as we're trying to hide something, we're not being followed appropriately. And so, that is a really big problem that we're running into, really more and more. I was hoping it would be on the decline with residents not working quite the way they did when you and I were residents. And that's no dig on residents out there. It was just a false assumption that I had.

And from a product mistake side, it's not having the right language. And unfortunately there's no standardization of language and insurance like there is in medicine. It's infuriating. We're all told you need an own occupation policy. Well, there are companies that say they are own occupation, but when you actually read the fine print, it's not. It's not the robust definition that we want. Or it may be that it's own occupation by the definition of occupation. So, you're covered for what it is you do, but then when you look at the definition of total disability, they change that.

And so, in order to be totally disabled, it'll say you can't do your job and you're not working, or not gainfully employed. Where you want the policy to say you're totally disabled if you can't do your job, regardless if you're gainfully employed. And it's literally a one word difference. And or regardless.

But how many of us read full documents, right? Group policies through your hospitals. It's one line on your open enrollment packet. You check a box. If it's employer paid, you don't have a choice anyway. And then you get these documents that are full of legalese and people don't understand it. And I get it. And so, there's so much nuance in disability insurance, and it's not a big playing field. There's only five major companies right now. One left in 2016. One left this past May.

So, we're not talking about a lot of companies, but they changed products often. Two of the companies changed products this year. Their product design. And underwriting changes and how they define things changes.

And so, another mistake that I find is people speaking with somebody who just really isn't up to date. But that's hard to know. That still goes back to so much of what happens. We just don't know what we don't know. And without of being educated appropriately, advocated for appropriately, there are little problems that can come up.

John: I have another question on that topic, but I want to mention that, and we'll give you the website, your website, because there's a lot of educational material there on the website. At least the thing you can do is go and read that. I think you've got blogs and you've got articles and things that can try to clarify that.

But it reminds me of a question. Let's say you're working for a large employer. Let's say a large hospital system or whatever, and you have this disability insurance and it doesn't really address those issues. I always had my own policy for a variety of reasons. I might have had some when I was a CMO, but I always kept my private policy. Does it make sense to just have another policy? I know it's expensive.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: It always makes. We should never speak in definitives but 99.9% of the time, yes. Group policy is by design, if you think about it. If you take a step back, they're being offered by your employer, which means they're being paid for by your employer and it can't break the bank. They don't really want to pay. It's a box that they need to check off.

And so, a lot of these group policies are inferior both in language and in what they're covering. We've seen some really creative policies, especially since COVID. I had mentioned my policy that didn't cover work-related injuries. We're seeing policies now that say they're not covering work-related injuries or illnesses, which I find to be a really slippery slope. I have no idea how we're supposed to prove where we get sick from.

It's so ridiculous. A lot of policies have two year limitations now for an entire grouping of issues. It used to be pretty common that there was a two year benefit for mental health and substance abuse. But now we're seeing, there's something that a lot of the companies are calling subjective illnesses. Think things that don't have path and monic tests. It's included, but not limited to. Pain, headaches, fatigue, ringing in the ears, repetitive motion syndromes. And in just the last 18 months, we've started to see two year limitations for musculoskeletal issues. And by the way, that's the number one reason that docs go out.

It's so important for people to have a quality policy in conjunction with whatever they get from their employer. It's the voluntary employer policies that most people probably shouldn't be purchasing.

For folks that may be hard to insure or would have a lot of things on a policy that a private carrier would exclude. Well, then that may be the best thing that they get. And there are times where I tell people, "Look, employer disability should be part of your contract negotiation." And so, it's definitely not a one size fits all. Everyone laughs at me around here because I will often say it's a one size fits one and go from there. And I realized that was pretty long-winded for a short question. But again, it just goes back to how much nuance there is with this.

John: Yeah, absolutely. It's not straightforward at all. And you can get messed up if you go down the wrong path. Okay. I'm going to ask you about other jobs in your field, but I wanted to ask you to go ahead and tell us about your website and your business and where we can find things and what kind of things are there if I am interested just in learning more.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: A lot has changed in the last five years. The website is pearsonravitz.com. And hopefully you'll put that in notes. A lot of people like to call us PearsonRabitz, but it's actually with "V" like Victor. And we actually went through a rebrand maybe two years ago. And there are sections where there are DI 101 articles, life insurance articles, blogs that speak to different issues that we've run into or that I've personally run into. And there are multiple ways to contact us through the website as well. I'm trying to make this as educational as possible.

John: Well, I can imagine if someone looks at some of those things and reads through them when you actually meet them, if you do meet them, whether through a lecture or one-on-one as a broker, their questions might be a little more focused and a little more intelligent than just start from ground zero.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Sometimes we know just enough not to. Listen, somebody who has some education or no education, a lot of education, I kind of start from square one and let the person I'm talking to or the group that I'm speaking with kind of lead the conversation.

John: Excellent. No, that makes sense. Before I get to this other question that I have, once they go through all this, if they want to employ your company, you personally or whatever other people on your company, then they can actually do that pretty much no matter where they live in the us. Is that right?

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Yes. We are licensed in all 50 states and Puerto Rico and we have day hours, night hours. If there's an extenuating circumstance, we'll make it work.

John: That's cool because then you know you've got someone that has that background in medicine that understands and I'm sure you probably ensure other people that aren't physicians too. But as a physician it would make me feel very comfortable. Well, that's awesome. Hopefully it's not as difficult to maintain a license for what you're doing as it would be to maintain a medical license in 50 states. That would be impossible.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: It is easier. I do have to do continuing education every year and write lots of checks.

John: Yes. Yes. Everything's going to be rolling over constantly. Okay. Well, since this is a podcast about nonclinical careers and it's been great to hear about your career. But I don't see that many other physicians heading in that direction. My question to you is, are there other things within disability and life insurance jobs for them if they're interested in the whole insurance industry? Maybe they want to become a broker I suppose and could follow your path. But even working for a disability insurance company or health or a life insurance company, what do you know about that?

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Every single company that we work with has a medical director. I'm told they all have a medical team. I'm not quite sure how many people that means. I have had the pleasure of speaking to a few within different carriers. There have been physicians employed to do claims reviews, there have been physicians employed to help with product development. There are spaces that are not necessarily physician focused medicine, if that makes sense, as opposed to utilizing the knowledge that we have to help push either underwriting or product design or decision making beyond what's a heart attack.

John: Yeah. Do most insurers that do disability also do life?

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Most of them do.

John: Of some of the bigger disability companies, because then if someone was looking on their career site, they might be able to look for medical director in either of those areas, I suppose.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: What we consider the big five in the disability space are Principal, Ameritas, MassMutual, Guardian, which used to be Berkshire Hathaway and Standard. Ohio National gave up their disability side in May of this year. They still do, they're a really big life insurance house. MetLife dropped out of the individual disability space back in 2016, but they still do a lot of life and a lot of group disability sales. The group side and the individual side usually are two distinct entities.

John: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. With the companies you mentioned, it doesn't hurt sometimes to just go on LinkedIn or go to their website, look at their careers. Put in medical director or physician or whatever and see what's out there.

I personally have talked to people that have worked in life insurance and they love their job, they never leave. Sometimes there's not that much turnover. I don't know on the disability side if it's the same thing.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: I think it is.

John: Yeah. It's a very intellectual thing. Reviewing studies and trying to pull together all this information, help the actuaries and others kind of figure out whether someone is insurable or not insurable. I think is what I've heard.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: It's pretty fascinating. I admit. I've learned way more about medicine in the last several years. I was an OB- GYN. I am an OB-GYN. My knowledge was pretty pigeonholed. And in doing this and in advocating for our clients, it's actually been super cool for me from a lifelong learner standpoint.

John: Yeah. Would seem interesting to know for each specialty, what are the key things they need to be able to do? And if they can't do that, then they need to be insured even though they may look completely healthy but something's not working and you need to be protected.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: I'd probably say at least 20 times a week that community medicine and insurance medicine are not the same. And that's really hard for physicians in particular to kind of stomach sometimes. Again, we have a certain fund of knowledge that lay people may not have. And there are plenty of times where I'll say to somebody, "Look, I get it, physician to physician, woman to woman, mom to mom, depending on what the issue is. I get it. But how you function in the world right now is not necessarily how you look on paper."

And they're looking at actuarial data. So much of their stuff is post claim data and they're making decisions today that potentially have 20, 30 even 40 year payout for them. And so, I do spend a decent amount of time explaining that difference. And on the flip side, I've been successful in a couple of areas of affecting change in underwriting because of the knowledge that we have. So, that's been exciting for me too.

John: This has been fascinating. We're going to run out of time soon. Any last things we didn't hit on today that you think just knowing my audience perhaps and what physicians in general need that you'd like to touch on before I let you go?

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: One of the things I really want to touch on, specifically with your audience, I know there is a big push for physicians to go nonclinical is you still need this coverage. I think that there is a myth out there that if I'm not using my hands, if I'm not in a hospital, I don't need this. And if you rely on your paycheck and you have a specific skillset knowledge base, we all need our brains. And it's so important that you still maintain coverage as you switch jobs.

Now you want to talk to the person who sold you your policy because at a certain point post clinician time, we may be able to change the occupational class, which may or may not save you money. And so, it's a conversation worth having.

John: No, that makes perfect sense. And in fact I came to realize recently more so than in the past is that when we think about leaving clinical and going into nonclinical, the reality is most of those jobs, one of the baseline requirements is that you're a physician, which means you have to have all that knowledge background and sometimes the experience just to get the job. Then you learn more. You're adding to your knowledge, you're not taking away. That all has to be protected because if it's gone because of an injury or head injury or whatever, you're in trouble.

All right. I really appreciate you being here today. It's been great catching up, Stephanie. I will definitely put the link to pearsonravitz.com and maybe a couple links to your LinkedIn and Instagram too, things like that. Maybe we'll have you back here in five years if we're still both around.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: I hope we're both still around.

John: I do. I think I'll be maybe retired by then completely.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: I still have at least that in me. So, we'll see.

John: All right. I really appreciate it again. Thanks for joining me today and I think my listeners will love hearing what you have to say. Bye-bye.

Dr. Stephanie Pearson: Thanks again. Take care.

John: Stephanie's story continues to inspire me. While it developed out of an unfortunate situation, it seems that she has found fulfillment in the career that she has created for herself since that injury about 10 years ago.

Also, I think it's great to know that if we need help understanding disability insurance, we can speak with another physician who truly understands us as we learn about protecting our most valuable asset, which is our ability to work and generate income to support ourselves and our families. If you don't already have this coverage, you should definitely learn more about it at pearsonravitz.com.

Scroll back to top

Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.

powered by

Disclaimers:

Many of the links that I refer you to are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you.

The post Physician Advocate and Insurance Broker Shares Her Expertise – 313 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Advanced Degrees and Other Decisions on the Road to a Nonclinical Career – 283

John Jurica — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 13:15:30 +0000

Interview with Dr. Laura Kaufman

Dr. Laura Kaufman shares her thoughts on advanced degrees and other decisions as she moved from traditional practice to consulting.

She recently quit her full-time clinical position and launched her consulting business. And she enrolled at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to pursue a master's degree in patient safety and healthcare quality.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.

Pursuing Advanced Degrees and Other Decisions

Dr. Kaufman began her private practice because she values its efficiency. Since completing her residency, she has mostly worked in obstetric anesthesia and served on quality and patient safety committees.

She was concerned about treating patients properly and safely. And she became frustrated when her patients seemed to be rushed through preoperative evaluation in spite of her concerns about their medical readiness.

So when her employer was acquired by another company, she began her consulting company and reduced her clinical hours. She started her nonclinical activities by providing medical opinions in legal proceedings and worked as a consultant for a respiratory therapy device company and an infection control consulting firm. But her main area of interest is improving quality and safety for obstetrical anesthesia care.

Choosing her Master's Degree

As she made those changes, she evaluated master's degree curricula that would support her transition. The Johns Hopkins program provides the coursework and the flexibility she needs.

Dr. Laura Kaufman's Advice

Build your connections, link to other people on LinkedIn because that's how those people find you.

Summary

When Laura became increasingly frustrated with constraints on her ability to practice the way she preferred, she took steps to make a shift in her career. She focused on a consulting business that would meet her desire to improve patient care quality and safety. And she took steps, including evaluation of advanced degrees and other decisions, that would improve her knowledge and authority in her chosen field.

You can reach Dr. Laura Kaufman on LinkedIn.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and leave a review on iTunes.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

Email Download New Tab

Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 283

Advanced Degrees and Other Decisions on the Road to a Nonclinical Career

- Interview with Dr. Laura Kaufman

John: I connected with today's guest on LinkedIn a little while ago because I was drawn to her interest in patient safety and quality improvement. Something I was always interested in when I was a CMO. But anyway, she's a little bit earlier than a lot of my guests in her transition, but I thought her story is interesting and I thought we can learn from her. So, I would like to say hello and welcome to Dr. Laura Kaufman.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Thank you. Thanks for having me on the show.

John: I'm glad you took the time to join us. We're going to learn a lot from you and. I think it's interesting to talk to someone who's kind of still feeling their way for part of it and making that transition. And so, I look forward to really hear what your thought process has been in this transition that you're in.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Well, thank you. Yeah.

John: Okay. Why don't you tell us some bit about your background, your education and clinical experience before we get into some of the other things that you're doing.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah. I did my residency from 2007 to 2011. I'm a little over a decade out from residency. I'm an anesthesiologist by training. I did my undergrad and my med school at University of Missouri in Columbia. My husband and I are both physicians, kind of corny. We're the couple that met in training and we both went up to Rochester, New York then for residency. He was finishing up his neurosurgery residency, I did my anesthesia residency up there.

And then we went down to Atlanta and I started private practice work. I thought I was destined for private practice because I like efficiency, I like speed. I thought that's where I'm going to keep things rolling. I went into private practice then, and I've done private practice ever since. And my husband did his fellowship at the time, and then we came back to Kansas City where I'm from. I did mostly OB anesthesia, it was kind of my area of specialty, kind of 50% or more. That was basically what I did for a decade plus after residency up until May of 2022.

John: Very good. So, you've got a lot of clinical experience, you know what it's like to practice. But for some reason you decided, "Well, maybe I should try something different." I like to hear what was it that triggered you to start thinking of trying something outside of clinical medicine or something in healthcare that can be helpful obviously to patients and to physicians, but is not necessarily giving direct patient care all the time?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah, I've always been interested in patient safety and quality. I've served on patient safety committees, quality committees, really since finishing residency. But there have been times throughout my career in residency and especially post residency where I thought I really don't know if this is being done as safe as it could have been. I wish that this patient had been more optimized before surgery. I wish that this process was better standardized for the patient. And a couple of patient cases where I got really frustrated and thought, "Wow, I just really don't think we're doing this right for the patient."

That came to a head a couple times in 2021. So, the year before I stopped practicing full-time clinically. While we were on family vacation, I reached out to a few master's programs and I thought "I can get frustrated, I can get mad, I can just say that's it, I quit. I'm not going to do this anymore because it's not safe, it's not the way I want it to be. I don't like it. It's not what I want it to be. I'm not going to do it."

But I found the master's in patient safety and healthcare quality at Johns Hopkins, and I spoke to the advisor there, and it really just seemed to click, it seemed to be what I wanted healthcare to be or be able to take me in the direction of when I wanted healthcare to be. And so, I started working on that master's last year. Honestly not knowing quite where it would take me, but just kind of excited about what that course of study was. And then the unit where I was in charge of OP anesthesia had a corporate buyout in May of 2022, and that's when I transitioned to the master's full-time.

John: Oh, okay. There was an obvious sort of draw the line somewhere because you would've had to do something different or acclimate even to a new system. That's where a lot of people find it's really tough.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah, yeah. A forced transition of sorts.

John: Yeah. Now I wanted to clarify too, most of us have a combination of things that are pushing us away and things that are drawing us to it. And so, you described that to some extent. For a lot of us, it's burnout. would you say you were affected or by that much at all in terms of just the volumes and the pressure to see more patients, that kind of thing?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah, for sure. There were moments, especially because of the pandemic, we had not enough staff. We were working 72-hour calls. We were Q2. Every physician has their moments of stress when there's a lot going on. But we were trying to hire, and it's hard to hire when you're showing someone a Q2 schedule.

John: Yes.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: And so, I think that on top of changing to a system where we're transitioning out of the unit where I was in charge, you pile all that on top of a situation where you're already frustrated and it's only a matter of time.

John: Right, right. I was impressed we were talking offline before, and it wasn't just the fact that maybe there were times where it got busy or that kind of thing, but you were really concerned about doing the right thing and treating patients appropriately and in situations where it wouldn't necessarily have really caused a problem to delay. Tell us more.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah. There were a couple of cases that really prompted me to call or to look into the master's programs where they weren't even necessarily my patient cases, but I was as aware of them or became aware of them. And I wanted to have conversations with other people about them. I talked to my colleagues, talked to other people in the hospital, talked to administrators, and I said, "Look, I really feel that maybe this patient would be better served if they were optimized before coming in, or if they saw other specialists or if they were able to see their primary care doctor before coming in in this context. Or maybe if they weren't treated at this hospital, but they were treated at a different hospital that was more specialized for it."

It wasn't that people weren't willing to listen, but it was more "We hear you, but we still think that we can do it without taking those steps." And I didn't feel that was appropriate and I wasn't personally involved in the care after voicing my concerns, but I just thought this isn't the way it's supposed to be. I need to find a way to fix it. And I'm probably not going to fix it overnight but it needs to be fixed. This isn't serving the patients in the long run.

John: Right. And particularly when you're in a situation where you're asked to maybe give an opinion or you just happen to have to be part of the care for that patient at the time, you definitely want your concerns to be listened to. I think in general, and maybe this isn't true of your institution, but a lot of institutions we get a sense of they just don't appreciate us. They're not really grateful that we're here. They just have us here because we have to be there. We have to sign off on things.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Right. Right. And you're not trying to be a barrier to getting things done, and you're trying to get that across. That it's not that I don't want to work, it's just that I want to make sure that everything is done safely and, in the patient's best interest.

John: All right. That was one of the things that helped you make that decision. And then you mentioned the other things that went into that. So, what do you think long term? I'm trying to get what your mind is thinking in terms of do you feel like you will maintain your license that you'll be still seeing some patients? Or is that kind of up in the air at this point?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: It's a little up in the air. I have two state licenses because I live really close to the state line of Missouri and Kansas. And I have renewed both of those state licenses into 2023 for both. And I've spoken to a couple of groups around town about doing just some kind of vacation PRN coverage because I don't know that I'm fully ready to step away from clinical work.

But when some other folks have offered me a part-time job, that's not what I'm looking for right now. I like the consulting work. I like working on the masters. And I would like to head more in the direction of the consulting and patient safety and quality work. So, I know some people when they head in the direction that I've headed in are ready to just fully abandon clinical work and send it out the doorway, see you later. But I like keeping that door open.

John: Well, I know a lot of physicians who basically balance the nonclinical and the clinical because they get bored with either one, honestly. They like doing both. And particularly if you're in quality and safety, well, it doesn't hurt to have continued exposure to patients and seeing what is happening in the real world because you're still doing some as opposed to being out completely. And even like the CEOs of Cleveland Clinic and Mayo still see patients or worse, seeing patients one day a week or something. So, it's not like you can't do any kind of even high-level job and not still do...

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah. Yeah.

John: Now on the consulting side, consulting is like this giant possibility. Everybody means different things by consulting. Some do some coaching, they call consulting. Some actually are employed by healthcare consulting firms. Of course, we're talking about freelance consulting type of thing.

Tell us a little bit of what you've done and at this point where you hope your consulting goes, because I think it'll probably evolve, but it's good to hear where you are and what you're planning on doing going forward.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah, absolutely. The easiest thing, or the first step for me, was legal chart review. I come from a family of lawyers. Much more of my family are lawyers than doctors. And I have friends from growing up and from school that were lawyers. And so, over the years I had family and friends ask what do you think about this case? Or what's your take on this case? What would you have said about this case?

You have enough of those conversations and then maybe someone says, "Can you look at this chart? If I sent you this chart, could you look through this chart, give me an opinion as to whether we should consider settling this or whether we should move forward with it?" And you get a big chart on a CD. Or even before the CDs, it was the giant stack of paper.

And so, I started doing it that way. I really haven't even moved past just doing chart reviews or opinions. I don't do them directly for family members. I think that would probably be a conflict of interest, but my family members and friends have referred me to other lawyers. I haven't done depositions or done court appearances. I'm not opposed to it, but it just hasn't gotten to that point.

But that was what I did mostly in the beginning. And that doesn't take long. It's usually a few hours, but it's nice. It's like a big puzzle. And then I'm usually telling them like, "Yes, I think you're good. I think this is a case that you can easily argue or oh gosh that didn't look good. You might want to think about whether you want to settle."

And that was what I did a lot in the beginning. In the last month I talked to a company that's trying to start out with some anesthesia CME. They're in business doing other types of CME, but they were trying to break into the anesthesia world. So, they wanted to talk about how to structure anesthesia CME, what anesthesia CME is already out there, what I like about anesthesia CME, what I don't like about anesthesia CME, what price points I thought would be appropriate for CME, which was a good question, how the CME could be delivered that people would and wouldn't like. And that was over the course of five hours.

I spoke with a company that wanted consulting for a respiratory therapy device, which I thought was interesting at first. Why are we talking to an anesthesiologist about this? But because we used other devices. That was about an eight-hour job of just talking through respiratory support devices in the recovery room and whatnot.

I've done a little bit of infection control consulting as well. So, it's kind of been just a little bit here and there. When people reach out to me and they have something that I really don't think is in my field, I am going to be honest with them and say, "I'm not sure I'm the person for you." And every once in a while, that's happened and they'll say, "Well, why don't we talk through it anyway?" Or they'll just say, "Well, thank you. I appreciate the honesty."

John: Yeah, yeah. Boy, there's so many things we could talk about. One thing that a lot of beginner consultants talk about is, "How do I price my services?" I think sometimes it's a negotiation. Sometimes it's like the person looking for your help just has that idea in their head "Look, this is what help I need, this is what I'm willing to pay. Is that okay?" So, what have you found so far in trying to come up and especially if you're doing different types of consulting?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah, that is an excellent question. I will say that I think you should ask for double what you would charge for locums. I think that's a good rule of thumb. And then come down from there.

There was a company that was looking for a physician. By this description, people might be able to find them on LinkedIn, but there is a company that's looking for a physician consultant for a health and fitness app. And I gave them a number and they wanted to pay like a fourth of that. And I said, "Well, good luck." Because they're looking for someone for five to 10 hours a week, and the rate they're looking for is so low. I was willing to negotiate with them for maybe two-thirds to even half of the rate that I would've charged that they were just trying to get a physician for a ridiculous amount of money. And I think they just wanted to be able to say they had a physician on staff.

John: Yeah. I think a lot of startups especially, they'll even try and get you to work for free and they'll maybe promise you some kind of payout when they go public or something crazy, which is years down the road. I know of people that have done that, but it's something you have to have other sources of income and a lot of patience.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah. And they'll negotiate with you and sometimes they'll even give you a number. The respiratory company, they said, "Can you send us your CV and then we will send you our quote?" And their quote was twice what I would charge for locums. So, I was like, "Wow. Sounds good. Thank you."

John: Now let's go back to the other thing, the educational, that you're in the middle of it now, the master's degree. Explain what the master's degree that you're doing is, the title of it, what is being taught? And also, how you ended up at this one? And I'm trying to think in my head. If I'm in the east coast and I happen to be around a lot of medical schools and it would be really easy to find a master's with pretty good quality, but there's so many things online now too. So, I'd like to hear a little bit about how you decided. I mean, Johns Hopkins is a big name. It's a good story. But tell me more.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: I honestly just started looking at master's programs. Who has masters that I can access? Because there are universities here in town, here in Kansas City. I could have looked for an in-person program. I didn't think I was looking for an MPH. I wanted something that was geared towards quality and safety. And so, it was kind of great that that was all in the title Masters of Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality. At least when I started looking, there were two to three programs around the country.

The nice thing about the Johns Hopkins one is it is fully online. Because some physician's masters do require you to travel a few times a year. Not that if the masters that you really want to do, that should necessarily prevent you from doing it. Because I've met some people that were working on MPHs or MBHs or MBAs that traveled and they thought it was definitely worth it for that degree. But I really loved that this was fully online, that most of it was asynchronous except for a few live talks. They were willing to work with you if that live talk time that was at 7:00 PM really didn't work for you, that you emailed the professor and explained it and it was okay.

And also, their goal is that you finish it within two years, but it's a soft two years. If you need to stretch it out, your advisor is pretty reasonable. It's not easy coursework. The statistics and the epidemiology, it's graduate level. They're not softball for you just because you've already done an MD, which is fine. Because the degree should mean something when you're using it later. But I also really liked that the advisor talked me through it. She said, "These are the other master's programs we have. What is your goal?" And then when we finished talking about it, she's like, "Yeah, I don't really think any of the other masters would be right for you."

John: Let's see. I have other questions about that. In an MBA it's typical, of course, that is a business degree, it's a little different, that usually you end up working in a team on some project or something like that. Is there anything similar to that in this kind of master's program?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: There are a couple of classes that have group papers. There is some online collaboration in Google classrooms and then there's some chat boards in the classes that are interactive sharing of articles and topics and things like that.

John: Okay. Because one of the things I hear on the MBA side is that the networking sometimes is as valuable as the actual education. In other words, you might come out with a cohort of 15 or 20 contacts all of whom are going into something. And for the ones that I'm know of, that involves physicians.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Oh, sure.

John: There might be like the UT PEMBA is a Physician Executive MBA. Not only do they learn all those things, but then they have these contacts that over time may help with their careers if they're working in their system or something. So, it seems like a lot of the masters do. I did a master's in public health many, many years ago and it was remote. But there was very little kind of collaboration among the students in the program I did. I missed out on to some extent. But it's just amazing what's available now for people to start looking.

The other advantage, of course, of being in a program, not so much for someone like you who is kind of starting their consulting business, but to get a job, it demonstrates your commitment and it shows that you're really interested in that particular thing. Even though you don't have the degree when you're looking for let's say a job with an institution or something, even just being in the program can be very helpful.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah. Yeah.

John: Well, let's see. That's all useful. Now what about LinkedIn? I'm just curious because that's how I found you or you found me. We found each other.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah.

John: And we've talked many times about how useful it can be. Anything going on there with you at this point yet? Have you found it? You have a good profile. I looked at it and it's there. And if people that are listening want to reach out to you, they can definitely just look for Laura Kaufman MD on LinkedIn and find out more about what you're doing. But anything about LinkedIn you'd like to share at this point?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: I definitely would say I learned a lot about LinkedIn from the Physician Nonclinical group on Facebook. I knew nothing about it or resumes before that group. I used Heather Fork's resume builder to build myself a resume because I had a CV. I had a CV, not a resume. Very different. I made that mistake for a month or so.

John: Do you hear that? Do you hear that bell? That's my acknowledgement to plug for Heather Fork. Sorry, go ahead.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah, absolutely. I was not using a resume before I used that. And my LinkedIn did not look good before that. But the legal review stuff, because I had the connections, I think I could have done without the LinkedIn, but the companies that have found me have found me through LinkedIn. I think that's huge. I think you have to figure out how to build your LinkedIn in order to find the consulting, especially if you're doing the freelance like I am right now. Otherwise, I don't know how you would find those people. So, definitely build your connections, link to other people on LinkedIn because that's how those people find you. And so, that's great.

John: Yeah. I think if you even just connect with people that seem to be doing similar things in your industry or in your line of work or that kind of thing, see if they're posting things, maybe start posting things. I've known people that have done that as a way to just generate some interest and collaboration when they see what you're actually doing. But I think what you've put in there already shows your interests and people can definitely find you on LinkedIn if they're interested in getting some consulting for quality improvement in patient safety.

Is your focus to get back to that, the consulting itself? Is it focused on any particular setting? Is it mostly because of anesthesia and OB anesthesia and so forth? Is it more in the hospital setting? Is it large groups? I don't know, there might be things in public health, I don't even know. But what have you found so far to be the opportunities other than being the medical expert?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Oh, sure. Mostly inpatient, really, because that's what I know. Yeah. I've got to be honest, I'm not as familiar with outpatient ambulatory clinic. Inpatient is more where I'm comfortable. Inpatient ORs, I love OR consulting. That's where I'm most comfortable. Absolutely. Yeah.

John: Well, that's good to know because there are a lot of people that listen to the podcast, so someone that's in that setting might even pick up on that. I will say this too, as a CMO, in my prior life, we hired a lot of consultants.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Oh, yeah. I bet.

John: Every time we had a new project, we wanted to start a new service line or we needed to adopt a latest trend or whatever it was in patient care or coding and documentation, you name it. And that's where the money is for sure, because groups really don't have money to spend on consultants for the most part. But there's other agencies that do. Okay, that's very useful.

So, where do you see things going? Do you have any big plans for the next six months? Are you going to keep plugging away on the masters and just keep lining up new clients? Anything new that you're going to be trying?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah, that's a great question. I think I'm just going to keep plugging away. I've got two classes signed up for the spring and I've told a couple groups that I can do some vacation coverage for them here and there. Trying not to get too over-committed clinically though. But it's actually really refreshing to not have a definitive "This is where I will be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday." Especially as type A physicians, it's kind of fun to have it be a surprise what the next project is. Yeah, let this ride for a little bit.

John: Yeah. For some people that might be too scary, but I think I would enjoy that too. There are different things, you're being sort of tested in a way differently in different environments. Let me ask you this one side question though.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Sure.

John: Have you been able to charge more for your clinical work as a part-time fill-in as kind of like a mini locums?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yes, I have. Yes. And I don't know if that bubble will burst, but yes.

John: When they need someone, it's like supply and demand, right?

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Right, right.

John: Now you not only have an easier clinical time of it because you're not doing so much, but you can actually get paid at a higher rate.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah. Yeah. And it could be location too because the Midwest is probably a harder place to bring people into.

John: Yeah. Especially when you get out in the country.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah, that's for sure.

John: That's really hard. All right, Laura. Well, this has been interesting. We're going to have to have you come back in a year or so.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah. To give an update.

John: I think it's been very interesting and I think the listeners will get some good insights if they're a little leery about doing something like you've already started to do.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Hopefully it'll encourage some people to take some chances or to think about taking chances if they don't feel as adventurous.

John: I think it will. And if they want to reach out to you, again, connect on LinkedIn, Laura Kaufman MKD. I guess that's it for today. I want to really thank you again for coming on and sharing this with us.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Yeah, thanks for having me.

John: You're welcome. All right. Bye-bye.

Dr. Laura Kaufman: Bye.

Scroll back to top

Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.

powered by

Disclaimers:

The post Advanced Degrees and Other Decisions on the Road to a Nonclinical Career – 283 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

5 Interesting and Unique Nonclinical Careers to Learn About – 275

John Jurica — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 14:00:45 +0000

Check Out These Inspirational Stories

In today's episode, John shares 5 unique careers to learn about that you may not have previously considered.

This episode will be devoted to sharing with you the careers that were the most unusual and fascinating and why.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete.

5 Interesting and Unique Nonclinical Careers to Learn About

Here are the 5 fascinating and distinctive careers to learn about with some of our favorite guests.

Founder and President of a Professional Organization

There are hundreds of professional organizations, often called associations, societies, or colleges. New organizations are founded every day, generally in response to a need of a particular group of potential members. And for those involving physicians, the leader of the organization is usually a physician as well.

Examples of such nonprofit professional groups include:

American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists
Association of Extremity Nerve Surgeons
American Academy of Medical Acupuncture
American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society

Dr. Lynn Marie Morski, the founder and president of the Psychedelic Medicine Association, exemplifies such a guest. Our interview originally aired in Episode #247.

Online Coach and Course Creator

There are many physician coaches. It is common for a physician coach to add group coaching to their individual coaching business. Some go on to write a blog or produce a podcast or YouTube channel. And some eventually build popular well known online courses.

Dr. Katrina Ubell, who produces the website and podcast called Weight Loss for Busy Physicians, represents a very successful online physician coach. Dr. Ubell's interview can be found in Episode #35.

Part-Time Consultant

This is a tried-and-true strategy for applying your abilities and passions once your practice is well-established. If you have special skills and an interest in helping others with a nonclinical challenge, you can be a part-time consultant. Once established, you can decide how much of your time you want to devote to each aspect of your professional life.

Dr. David Norris is a classic example of a physician consultant. His side business gradually grew to be the dominant part of his career. My conversation with David is available in Episode #111.

Independent Disability Insurance Broker

Dr. Stephanie Pearson left clinical practice because of her own disabling injury. She found that many of her colleagues did not understand the importance of disability insurance, nor how to select the best policies. So, she decided to assist residents and other physicians understand such insurance and how to protect themselves from the effects of a disabling injury. She is now a successful full-time disability insurance broker.

You may learn more about this in Episode #23.

Chief Medical Officer for a Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC)

As the CMO at a hospital that was heavily reliant on CMS funding, I became very familiar with MACs. But I didn't recognize that MACs employed Chief Medical Officers until interviewing Dr. Meredith Loveless in Episode #165. The work is mostly done remotely, which gives the CMO a lot of flexibility, and it pays well.

Summary

These are 5 of the most interesting and unique nonclinical careers to learn about that also generally pay well.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and leave a review on iTunes.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

Email Download New Tab

Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 275

5 Interesting and Unique Nonclinical Careers to Learn About

John: I was recently interviewed by Dr. Bradley Block on his podcast Physician's Guide to Doctoring. It was a lot of fun, and I'll be sure to put a link in the show notes to that podcast because I think you'd like it. And as of this recording though, the episode's not been released. So, what it is, I'll be sure to mention it here and in an email.

But during our interview, after telling a little bit about myself, you can imagine that I answered a few questions about nonclinical and non-traditional jobs. And one of the questions Brad asked me, actually, was more than one had to do with specific jobs. Like what was the best paying position, what was most esoteric or unique, et cetera, and things like that.

That got me thinking about devoting an episode here to discussing the jobs that I find most interesting and why, and include links to the episodes for those who want to do more investigation into those jobs. These are jobs that one wouldn't necessarily think about right away. So, that's what I'm going to do. What follows is a list of the jobs that physicians are doing that surprise me and why I find them so interesting. So, let's get to it.

Now, there are some jobs that are pretty well known to any physician who has started to look around at a non-traditional position. Those jobs are such as utilization management, and physician advisor, that's a common entry-level job. Or in the hospital world, medical director or chief medical officer. Most of us have encountered those kinds of positions just in our daily practice sometimes if we enter the hospital. Or in the pharmaceutical industry, the medical science liaison, it's a very popular entry-level job, or the medical director in medical affairs.

Those are kind of well-known. But now I like to present a short list of nonclinical jobs that I've learned about that I think are interesting, often unique, and not commonly encountered when starting to learn about nonclinical jobs. Maybe I can get you thinking about these and maybe one or two of these will be of interest to you such that you can do a little more digging into them.

And so, let's get going here in no particular order. The first is the founder and president of a professional organization. Now, there's a broader group, and that's just any physician leading a professional organization. But the reality is there are several opportunities out there apparently for us to create our own professional organization. And then most of the time they're nonprofit, and you can be then the president or CEO.

There are thousands of organizations like this in the United States, and I often came into contact with them when I was volunteering as a CME site surveyor for the Accreditation Council for CME or the ACCME. I did that for I think about 20 years. I interviewed folks from at least a hundred different organizations, and many of them were associations or similar organizations. They obviously catered to physicians and they produced educational content for which they wanted to provide CME credit. So, they had to be surveyed basically every four to six years.

We'd review the programs and collect information about their compliance with the requirements of the ACCME. Now, many of these organizations that are credited are medical schools or large medical publishing companies, CME companies, and hospital systems, but a significant number of them were academies, societies, and associations. Sometimes they were called colleges whose members included physicians. And I was just intrigued by this because I could see their background when we were doing the survey. Some were pretty unique, pretty small, and were recently started. They're mostly structured, as I said, as nonprofits. And sometimes they represented members in some pretty narrow fields.

I'll give you just some examples of the titles of these organizations just to show you that they're not like the AAMA or the ACP. We're talking about niche areas. Examples. American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists, Association of Extremity Nerve Surgeons, American Academy of Medical Acupuncture, American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society. I'm just scratching the surface here.

So, you get the idea. There are new organizations that are started every day, usually in response to a specific need. I was asking a colleague the other day who's in locum tenens if there was any organization for locum tenens physicians. And he said, as far as he knew, and he was active in locums, he actually spent on my podcast a couple of times as a guest. That's Andrew Wilner. He wasn't aware of any, so that kind of shocked me.

But anyway, most of these organizations for physicians will have a paid physician leading them. And I wouldn't have brought this up unless I had a guest that had done this very thing. So, the guest who best exemplifies this job was Dr. Lynn Marie Morski, who is a founder and president of the Psychedelic Medicine Association. You can find our interview in PNC podcast episode number 247 from May of this year, 2022. You can imagine why she started this because there have been some really interesting studies in using psychedelics to treat depression and PTSD with some pretty remarkable results.

And so, it's becoming mainstream and there are physicians who would like to participate in some way. And so, this is a very interesting job, and as far as I know, she's still in that position. Something you might think about is either stepping into an association or society that already exists or developing your own and meeting a need. And all you need is 20, 30, or 40 people who might join and it'll probably be self-supporting until it grows even larger. All right, that's number one. And you can find that at nonclinicalphysicians.com/psychedelics-in-clinical-medicine. But of course, I will put links in the show notes.

The second job I wanted to mention is that of an online coach and course creator. Now, a lot of us aim for that kind of thing. There are obviously many, many physician coaches. I'm familiar with dozens of coaches, and I've seen lists of up to 200 physician coaches for different types of coaching. It's common for successful physician coaches to add group coaching to their individual coaching business.

Some go on to write a blog or produce a podcast or a YouTube channel. Some create a community via Facebook or other means to support and teach their clients and to generate sales leads for their services. And some also develop their own online courses or combinations of live and recorded online programs that can really reach a much larger audience.

This group becomes very small because it's difficult to become highly successful in this. There are a select few who create a sustainable online presence using some or all the previously mentioned online services. They put it together so that they can scale it and then somewhat automate part of it so that you can generate some income and not get burnt out in the process of doing it.

Some of these people who are really successful generate income that meets or exceeds that generated in their career as a physician. And I find it really inspiring and compelling when I find such physicians. And the one that's represented among my interviewees is Dr. Katrina Ubell of Weight Loss for Busy Physicians. That's the name of her website and of her podcast. She's been offering now for several years a comprehensive six-month program called Weight Loss for Doctors Only, which is very popular and successful. I don't have access to her books or anything, but I know that she's successful because others have mentioned it, and kind of as secondary support for that.

I know she's extremely busy and very successful. It has a lot of clients. She practiced pediatrics for many years, but now focused primarily on her coaching and her weight loss programs. And on top of everything else, she recently published a book called How to Lose Weight for the Last Time. It just came out in September of 2022. You can find that on Amazon and every place else. And it's really quite a remarkable accomplishment because it was traditionally published. And so, you've heard from authors and writers here in the podcast before, that's not an easy task. You can listen to my interview with Katrina in episode number 35 from May of 2018. If you want to go directly to that, you can go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/optimize-your-attitude.

The third interesting career today is that of a part-time consultant. I've interviewed several physicians who are doing consulting of one type or another. You can be employed as a consultant, you can start your own consulting company, part-time, full-time, remote, live, face-to-face and what have you. It's all kinds of things, and it's a common business that physicians do create. But really to do it well and to demonstrate that you can practice first full-time and then transition slowly over time as you build this part-time clinical or nonclinical consulting firm, it's really unique when you can find someone who has accomplished that and has made it work for an extended period of time.

I found that my interview with Dr. David Norris was very compelling because it represented such an iconic part-time side gig, which he's continued to do since he was interviewed back about three years ago. David continues to practice anesthesia along the way. He obtained an MBA and a certification as a physician executive because he's interested in those kinds of things. It's not necessary to do that to be a consultant. But he offers business and management consulting services to medical practices and other healthcare businesses, and he produces a podcast called the Financially Intelligent Physician. He is gradually increasing consulting over time as he's reduced his clinical hours.

Again, it's a classic way to leverage your skills and interests once your practice has been well established. And then as it does so, you can decide how much balance you want in one versus the other. It's kind of like expert witness consulting. You can do very part-time or do a lot more, cut back on your practice, but you can find that balance that works for you. Anyway, you can listen to my interview with David in episode number 111 from October 2019, which can be found at nonclinicalphysicians.com/business-coach-and-consultant.

The fourth career that I found interesting and compelling, to me at least, is that of an independent disability insurance broker. Dr. Stephanie Pearson was a busy obstetrician when she suffered a work-related injury. She discovered that her injury, and after her injury, the disability insurance coverage was not always as it appeared to be. And we get into that a lot on the interview. I'm not going to go into that now but what happened was she wasn't able to go back to do her same clinical work. And because of the struggles that she had with disability insurance coverage, she became committed to helping residents and other physicians understand the importance of such insurance and what to look for in a good policy that would fully protect them in the event of a disabling injury, such as the one she had.

She was giving people advice about this for free for a while, but then she jumped through all the hurdles that enabled her to become an independent broker, and she continues to promote and sell insurance mostly to physicians today. And I've yet to meet another disability or life insurance broker who's also a physician. So, I think it was quite unique. And my interview with Stephanie is in episode number 23 from February 2018. And if you go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physician-advocate, you'll be able to find that episode and I think you'll find it very interesting.

The fifth and final career for today's episode is that of Chief Medical Officer for a Medicare administrative contractor. It's also known as a MAC. And I was well aware of MACs because they're very important to my role as Chief Medical Officer for a hospital, which like most hospitals, was heavily dependent on CMS payments.

Medicare and Medicaid payments are critical to most hospitals, and you really need to understand what the MACs are expecting so that you can get paid properly. But before speaking with Dr. Meredith Loveless, also a former full-time OB-GYN, it never occurred to me that there were physicians working for the MACs and at that leadership level position. So, it was an interesting interview. I've not interviewed anybody doing anything like that since.

The neat thing about the job too is that it does pay well as most CMO jobs pay in almost any industry, and it's performed remotely for the most part. The reason she took the job and found that job and took it was because it gave her a little more flexibility so she could be home with her family, not because she was burnt out. She really loves the job. She says that it's interesting, it's fulfilling. And you can listen to our conversation episode 165 from October of 2020, and that's at nonclinicalphysicians.com/cmo-for-a-mac.

Those are the five I wanted to mention today. Again, if any of those five are interesting, you've got episodes you can listen to. There are a lot of links in each of those episodes. I'm pretty sure I have transcripts of those for each episode as well, which you can use if you prefer not to actually listen to it. You can just read through it. And you can get all those resources at nonclinicalphysicians.com/careers-to-learn-about.

Scroll back to top

Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.

powered by

Disclaimers:

The post 5 Interesting and Unique Nonclinical Careers to Learn About – 275 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Limited Coaching Helps This Full Time Medical Director – 101

John Jurica — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 11:00:54 +0000

Interview with Dr. Krystal Sodaitis

On this week’s podcast episode, I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Krystal Sodaitis, who has found that coaching helps bring balance to her life. Like my previous guest, she is a member of the Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters Facebook group where she shares what she has learned with other members.

Krystal is a UM Medical Director who offers a fascinating new perspective on the process of transitioning from clinical work into her UM role. Also a certified weight and life coach, Krystal shares her experiences as a coach for the gifted. And she provides insight into how to integrate a successful side gig.

Background

Dr. Sodaitis completed a general pediatrics residency from the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon, GA, an Academic General Pediatrics fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and a master’s of public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston.

Her fellowship involved training residents on patient management, including the history of health plans and the difference between HMOs and PPOs. From that moment, she fell in love with the world of health insurance.

She is also a fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and a Certified Health Insurance Executive.

Prior to moving into her current role, she had a 15-year career in Academic General Pediatrics, which included serving as the clinical chief of the division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She also worked as the Medical Director of the Mother-Baby Unit at the Children’s Hospital of the University of Illinois.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country, with over 650 graduates. Unlike other programs, which typically run 1 – 1/2 to 2 years, this program only takes a year to complete. And Economist Magazine recently ranked the business school #1 in the world for the Most Relevant Executive MBA.

University of Tennessee PEMBA students bring exceptional value to their organizations. While in the program, you'll participate in a company project, thereby contributing to your organization.

Graduates have taken leadership positions at major healthcare organizations. And they've become entrepreneurs and business owners.

By joining the University of Tennessee physician executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to advance your career. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office by calling (865) 974-6526 or go to vitalpe.net/physicianmba.

The Search for a New Career Begins

While in her faculty position in Chicago, she searched for ‘Medical Directors Chicago Area’. A Utilization Management Medical Director position caught her eye and she decided to apply for it. “I didn’t even realize that positions like that existed. It was perfect for me,” Krystal explained.

Unfortunately, she was not qualified for the position just yet. Galvanized by the knowledge that the position was out there, she began her mission to become qualified for such a position.

Over the next 15 months, Krystal attended the American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL) conference and took a seminar, as well as an online course. She joined the Utilization Management committee at her hospital, and she acquired her Yellow Belt Lean Certification from the International Association of Six Sigma Certification (IASSC).

Networking Yields a Lead

After a torrid 15 months of growing her leadership and management skillset, a friend who knew about her career goals forwarded her a posting for the medical director position that she ultimately landed.

Krystal is now a medical director with Aetna. With extensive pediatric and neonatal experience, she serves as a pediatric subject matter expert for Aetna’s Clinical Policy Unit.

Despite her background in pediatrics, she found herself dealing with a wide variety of patients in her first role as a medical director. She split the organization’s Medicare membership with another physician, placing her out of her comfort zone and challenging herself in new ways. “I did everything. In medicine, the one constant is change.”

The diverse challenges of the role put her back in touch with her love of medicine and reinvigorated her love of learning. “One of the things I love most about my job is how much I get to learn every day.”

“One of the things I love most about my job is how much I get to learn every day.”
Krystal Sodaitis

No Looking Back

Now, Krystal doesn’t look back. One thing she really doesn’t miss about her clinical and academic work is carrying the weight of patients around with her. “You don’t even realize you carry that weight around until it’s gone.”

She loves her new work and is excited to pursue leadership roles within her organization. To that end, she recently became a certified life and weight coach, with the goal of incorporating those tools into her leadership style. However, it also opened up a new avenue in her professional life in the form of a fascinating side gig.

Life Coaching

In March of 2019, Krystal completed a certification in life and weight coaching from The Life Coach School (Allen, Tx). As someone who has always been fascinated by the gifted community, particularly gifted adolescents, Krystal saw an opportunity to put her new life coach skills to work in a much-needed way.

There are lots of resources to educate parents of gifted children about how to accelerate them. However, there are limited options for gifted children and young adults who are underachieving or experience anxiety and depression. With the goal of providing those gifted young adults and their parents with the tools to manage their intelligence and emotional balance, Krystal founded Life Coaching for Gifted.

“Don’t be in a rush. You really want to find something that calls to you.”
Krystal Sodaitis

Summary

As with so many of our guests, Krystal is yet another example of how easy and successful a transition to a non-clinical career can be if you take the time to identify what you want and go after it with a plan in place. Identify what you love about your work, talk to experts and colleagues in fields that will let you pursue that, and put together a plan of action. “Don’t be in a rush. You really want to find something that calls to you.”

Links for today's episode:

Thanks to our sponsor…

Thanks to the UT Physician Executive MBA program for sponsoring the show. It’s an outstanding, highly rated, MBA program designed for working physicians. It might be just what you need to prepare for that joyful, well-paying career. You can find out more at vitalpe.net/physicianmba.

I hope to see you next time on the PNC Podcast.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and leave a review on iTunes.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton.

Disclaimers:

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. It should not be construed as medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counsellor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career.

Right click here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Here are the easiest ways to listen:

vitalpe.net/itunes – vitalpe.net/stitcher – vitalpe.net/googleplay

The post Limited Coaching Helps This Full Time Medical Director – 101 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

How to Flourish in the Little-Known World of Life Insurance Medicine with Dr. Judy Finney – 039

John Jurica — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 11:30:21 +0000

In this podcast episode, I'm speaking with Dr. Judy Finney, an interventional cardiologist who transitioned into her current career in life insurance medicine six years ago. She describes her career journey and provides insights for those considering this career.

I made a commitment to present a new episode each week. I must apologize for completely skipping last week's episode. My family and I were in Munich, Germany last week. I had intended to complete the editing and posting of today's episode. But the preparations for our vacation took precedence and I was unable to finish the episode prior to leaving.

Basilica of St. Michael, Mondsee, Austria – Used in the film “Sound of Music”

The photos used in this edition of the show notes are from my recent trip to Munich and Salzburg.

Interview with Dr. Judy Finney

Judy completed undergraduate studies in zoology, and medical school, at Michigan State. She completed an internal medicine residency and fellowships in cardiology and interventional cardiology, and became board certified in all three disciplines. She built a private cardiology practice, then opted to work for a large group for the final 3 1/2 years of her clinical career. Six years ago she moved into life insurance medicine.

Stopped for a picture with Kay in the foyer of the HofBrauHaus

As stated, she now works for Allstate full-time. But she also finds time to work as a speaker and mentor at the annual SEAK Nonclinical Careers for Physicians Conference each October.

Pursuing a Career in Life Insurance Medicine

Judy does a great job during our discussion addressing several issues:

Her career path from interventional cardiologist to full-time Associate Medical Director for the Allstate Insurance Company
Her advice on how to increase your odds of getting a job in life insurance medicine
The personality traits that are probably most compatible with such a career
Some of the adjustments that will need to be made when pivoting to this type of position
Resources that can be helpful for the prospective life insurance medical director, such as:
- Brackenridge's Medical Selection of Life Risks: Fifth Edition (note: this is an Amazon affiliate link).
- American Academy of Insurance Medicine (AAIM)
- Midwestern Medical Directors Association
- SEAK’s Annual Non-Clinical Careers Conference
- LOMA (Life Office Management Association)

By following Judy's advice, you can really accelerate your pursuit of this career choice.

A young artist creates a sand sculpture near Viktualienmarkt in Munich

I hope you found this episode helpful. If so, please subscribe to the podcast on your favorite smart phone app or on iTunes.

Get the Newsletter

I provide additional nonclinical career information in my newsletter. For example, I have a list of several new jobs for physicians in management at HCA that have been shared by a recruiter. I will be sending that list out later this week. To sign up for the newsletter, simply complete the information found at vitalpe.net/newsletter.

Neuschwanstein Castle in the south of Bavaria

Leopoldskron Castle served as the Trapp family home in the film The Sound of Music

The Eagles Nest, one of Hitler's governmental headquarters during World War II

Join me next week for another episode of Physician Nonclinical Careers.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on the Apple Podcast App.

If you liked today’s episode, please tell your friends about it and SHARE it on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Right click here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Disclaimer:

The opinions expressed herein are those of me and my guest, where applicable. While the information published in written form here, and in audio form on the podcast, are true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed herein will lead to success in your career, life or business.

The opinions are my own, and my guest's, and not those of any organizations that I'm a member of, or affiliated with. The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only and shouldn’t be construed as advice, such a medical, legal, tax, emotional or other types of advice. If you take action on any information provided on the blog or podcast, it’s at your own risk. Always consult a professional, e.g., attorney, accountant, career counsellor, etc., before making any major decisions related to the subject matter of the blog and podcast.

Affiliate Links:

Where noted in parentheses, I receive a small stipend for referring you to a site, such as Amazon, where you may purchase a product discussed in a podcast, show notes or blog post. This does not affect your cost for the product. I only promote products that I have purchased or used myself, or that have been recommended by respected colleagues, including podcast guests.

The post How to Flourish in the Little-Known World of Life Insurance Medicine with Dr. Judy Finney – 039 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

The Journey From Career Loss to Physician Advocate with Dr. Stephanie Pearson – 023

John Jurica — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 11:30:49 +0000

In this podcast episode, I speak with Dr. Stephanie Pearson, a disability expert and physician advocate. A work-related injury forced Stephanie to leave her specialty of obstetrics and gynecology. Next, she found her disability insurance carrier unwilling to cover her injury. This put her family at risk. Yet, she overcame these challenges, becoming a disability expert and physician advocate along the way.

Not every physician who is struggling to find a new career leaves medicine because of burnout, or a desire for something better.

Sometimes, we’re forced to leave our profession due to circumstances beyond our control. Then, we must decide: Can I overcome such events? Can I build a new career that brings me joy? Can I rediscover a career that inspires me like medicine did?

From Career Loss to Physician Advocate

Stephanie Pearson was a successful obstetrician/gynecologist who loved her practice. And, she had every intention of retiring after years of successful practice as an OB/Gyn.

However, an unfortunate injury, sustained while caring for a patient, ended her career.

To make matters worse, her disability insurance excluded work-related injuries from coverage. And, as the primary breadwinner, this put her family in a difficult position. And, there was no physician advocate to help her.

Stephanie explains in this interview how she responded to this challenge. Unable to return to her profession, she created a fulfilling new career for herself. And, she explains how she became a physician advocate in disability and life insurance.

Today, she’s made it her mission to educate and empower her peers about the importance of protecting their most valuable asset — the ability to earn an income. Respectful of physicians’ time and needs, she’s an expert on the basics and nuances of disability insurance for doctors. She now works full-time as a Physician Disability Insurance Broker and Physician Advocate.

Stephanie’s story is very inspiring. In addition to helping us understand how she overcame her setbacks, she provides practical advice for pursuing a career as a disability broker.

Educating Physicians

That’s an area that I didn’t know much about. But, Stephanie is committed to educating physicians and involving more of them in this field. She describes her journey excellently and shows us how we might pursue a similar nonclinical career.

In Closing

You can contact Stephanie Pearson at PearsonRavitz.

In my next episode, I present a conversation with Dian Ginsberg, the Director for Career Services at the American Association for Physician Leadership. She provides an excellent overview of the services provided by the AAPL and how it might help in your quest for a nonclinical career.

Here are the resources mentioned in this episode:

[table id=20 /]

If you liked today’s episode please tell your friends about it and SHARE it on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Right-click here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

The post The Journey From Career Loss to Physician Advocate with Dr. Stephanie Pearson – 023 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.