What and When to Tell Your Heirs
June 3rd 2011I was having dinner with my "Kitchen Cabinet" the other night when one of them asked me how to go about telling his heirs about his estate. It is an important question, and having seen or heard little on that niche aspect of estate planning I immediately put my crack staff to work on it.
A Feast of Financial Leftovers
May 26th 2011The day after Thanksgiving is not the only time to nosh on leftovers. In my financial fridge there are some goodies lurking that didn't make it all the way to prime time in the first pass. So I am going to open them up, lay them out and wish you bon financial appetit!
Why Young Doctors Resist Advice
May 20th 2011The young, and especially young doctors, are sometimes full of bravado with freshly minted degrees in hand. Thankfully, some wisdom comes with age, and lessons get learned the hard way. But there are some new, systemic reasons why younger doctors -- the people who can benefit the most from financial advice -- are reluctant to hear it, let alone take.
Physicians Charging Annual Fees? Stop the Presses!
May 13th 2011For many years, the only headlines involving medicine would cover the occasional scientific breakthrough or pandemic. Increasingly, the business of medicine has become the most pressing subject in the media. The case in point was a recent page one headline which proclaimed "More Family Doctors Charging Patients Annual Fees." It sounds ominous, and the implications are ominous.
The Myriad Problems with Medicine
May 5th 2011There are myriad problems besetting medicine that affect outcomes, medical and financial. One of the inherent ones is that many of these problems have intertwining relationships, making it that much harder to parse out for analysis and improvement. Let's look at a few, keeping in mind our blood pressure.
Revisiting Past Columns: How'd I Do?
April 22nd 2011In the interest of transparency and accountability, two things this world is very short on, here are some follow-ups on previous columns and ruminations. Was I right, wrong, incomplete, or just wandering in the fog? Like everything in life, it's probably a mélange of all of the above, so let's see.
Phrases That Can Cost You Money
March 4th 2011Contrary to "Sticks and stones...," words can actually hurt you -- and cost you money. They are all around us and some are so common that we rarely think about them. Many not only often end up costing us money, but frequently have the additional virtue of aggravating us -- insult on injury. Here are some of the most egregious examples.
I Can't Afford All These Discounts!
February 19th 2011I am happy that our competitive consumer system is working, i.e. allegedly keeping prices down. But there are costs to us other than specie that we need to be aware of as we go through our lives. We are battered from all sides all day about "savings," "discounts," "sales," "only here," "time is limited," etc., which noise degrades the quality of our lives, even if we do occasionally save a buck. And keep in mind that "savings" always requires spending. If you really want to save big, don't buy it!
Quotes To Inspire Success (Financial and Otherwise)
January 27th 2011I've compiled some quotes about money, success and life in general that remind us that we don't have to reinvent the wheel -- we just need to know how to source it. We also learn, yet again, that a felicity of expression is timeless. So read on for some of my favorite quotes, and share some of your favorites with your fellow readers in the comments section.
The Lazy Way to Create a Budget That Works
January 14th 2011Budgeting is hard work, but there may be some unassayed ore in that slag heap. All of us would rather make smart financial decisions rather than the ones we too often make, and if we were given the data to know and better understand what it is that we are actually doing with our money we could be better off financially and emotionally more secure. Now that's an attractive combination.
Making the Case for Wealth Management
December 16th 2010"Wealth management" is a phrase financial advisors use to attract high-earning and/or high-net-worth individuals -- and there is some sense to the concept. Talking a plan through, and then seeing it in writing, can have an impact that is hard to envision otherwise, even if time and circumstances lead to the wholesale revision or even scrapping of elements you once thought essential.
Technology, Medicine and Money
November 11th 2010We so much to the wave of technological advances that have enhanced our ability to accomplish our mission. But we also need to do some hard thinking and planning about how best to integrate the rate and means of technological change into the practice of medicine, or run the hazard of having our possible future utopia distort into a dystopia.