At the heart of the physician shortage is a shortage of primary care physicians. In this week's Alemian File, David Alemian argues that better retirement plans would help rural and underserved areas attract primary care doctors.
I just returned from a meeting with my colleagues where we discussed the physician shortage. During our discussion we focused on the high demand for primary care physicians. More specifically, we talked about how vital primary care physicians are to physician groups. Specialists are important, but generally speaking, patients are most loyal to their primary care physicians.
Physician groups looking to expand their reach to more patients need to focus on primary care physicians. Recruiting and retaining primary care physicians can be a daunting task. In rural areas, or those areas designated by the federal government as underserved populations, the competition for primary care physicians is particularly tough.
In 2020, the US will be short some 20,000 primary care physicians. To overcome the shortage, physician groups and healthcare organizations need to be creative with their physician recruitment and retention programs. Offering lifetime pension plans is the ideal solution to recruiting primary care physicians. The reason, is although primary care physicians earn a decent income, their income is nowhere near as high as some specialties. Consequently, their income gives them a good lifestyle, but they almost never accumulate enough to maintain that lifestyle when they retire. To these primary care physicians, a lifelong pension plan becomes a very attractive offer.
A physician group can leverage its financial strength to use bank financing in a way to fund the pension plan. This would make the pension plan very affordable, and enable the physician to have retirement benefits that he or she could never get on their own.
If you have questions send an email to David@TheAlemianFile.com.
One last thing, I have a special invitation for you.
Save the Date: Wednesday, March 30th, at 8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific.
My friends at Next Generation Trust Services are presenting a live webinar on self-directed IRAs. I’ll be on the webinar too talking about the Seven Retirement Killers. We’ll have a live open question and answer period, and you can ask me any question about retirement you like. It’ll be a great opportunity for us to interact together in a live open forum. You can register right here at the bottom of this page.
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Absolutely, make sure you come back here next week to Physician’s Money Digest for another edition of The Alemian File.
Please register for “How to Avoid the 7 Retirement Killers Webinar” on March 30, 8 pm Easter/4 pm Pacific. Click on the link to register. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1107679172834399748