life 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.

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[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.

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Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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