Christopher R. Jarvis, MBA

Captive insurance companies can help physicians manage financial risks, reduce taxable income by hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, and build a creditor-protected reserves account.

Physicians have a lot of misconceptions about how to protect their assets from a lawsuit. There are a few degrees of protection that you can put in place.

Higher profit and lower taxes are still possible in private practice.

Doctors need to build an advisory team of subspecialists who not only work with high income, high liability and high tax rate paying clients but also understand the unique challenges of working within the constraints of a more complicated health care system .

Leaving private practice to become a hospital employee can be a good fit for many physicians, but it's not a wise move for everyone. Physicians need to fairly assess the costs and benefits of giving up private practice for hospital employment.

Fewer than 5% of doctors have an adequate estate plan; for those who do, the upcoming tax-law changes may create even more shortfalls. Here's how to avoid the three biggest -- and most costly -- estate-planning mistakes physicians typically make.

New laws and proposed legislation could push the tax burden on some physicians to 50 percent or more. Time is running out to take advantage of today's relatively low tax rates by converting your retirement savings to a tax-free Roth IRA.

Your portfolio is in shambles! Ok, that's overstating the case for effect, but with the prospect of inflation looming, you're going to want to take some defensive measures to protect the value of your investments.

What do long term care and cash value insurance have to do with you? More than you think. Part two of this article focuses on tax, investment, and insurance issues that differ greatly for physicians.

Financial advice geared towards the average reader or listener ignores the unique financial situation of the physician. By heeding it, healthcare providers expose themselves to much unnecessary risk.

Because doctors have significant risks to insure against, are interested in asset protection, building wealth, and finding practice buy-out and estate planning opportunities, they have many reasons to be interested in utilizing CICs.

Generally, if you split your investment dollars between two investments, you would expect to get a return right in the middle. However, this is not the case if you rebalance your portfolio each year.

In addition to identifying the Three Big Mistakes, the authors discuss simple tools that doctors can use to avoid unnecessary costs which come with poor planning.