WCI #259: Doctors Who Become Disabled

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This is White Coat Investor podcast number 259. Doctors who became disabled Getting quality disability and life insurance should be the first financial chore for a doctor to complete. Most docs don't have the ideal policy for their gender, specialty, state or health status. And one in seven doctors get disabled at some point during their career. Because these policies can only be purchased through brokers, we put together a list of vetted agents who are experienced with working with the specific needs of medical professionals and who have your best interest at heart. If you have questions about insurance and what kind of policies would be the best fit for you, check out our insurance recommended list@whitecoatinvestor.com insurance and feel the peace of mind that comes with knowing you have the optimal policy in place. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. All right, our quote of the day today comes from Woody Allen who said money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. We've got a great episode today, but before we get into it, I want to tell you about a couple of things. One, we want you to nominate the person who has taught you about finance. Okay? Now these have to be practicing doctors. They need to be physicians, dentists, whatever. They can be in academics or not in academics. But the idea is we want to recognize people who are going above and beyond to educate their colleagues and their trainees about finances. So you can nominate them. Whitecoatinvestor.com educator from now until the end of the month. And we'll select a winner. We'll give them a little bit of cash and some serious recognition for what they're doing. And so we appreciate you nominating others for that award. No, you cannot nominate yourself. One other thing you ought to know about is I wrote a book. This is my fourth book. It's called the White Coat Investor's Guide to Asset Protection. It was originally just going to be an ebook, but it turned out that it was kind of long. There was a lot of information that needed to be in it. And in fact, as far as I know, it is the best compilation, the most complete compilation of state specific asset protection laws that can be found anywhere. And so it'll teach you about the basics of asset protection. It goes over advanced asset protection techniques. It really helps you to understand how you place this section of your financial plan. Into the whole rest of the financial plan. It's probably the most specific book I've ever written, but it should be out here within the next couple of weeks, so watch for that. We'll mention it on the blog, of course, and it'll be available on Amazon just like the other books. So watch for that coming out. If you have questions about asset protection, if you are interested in the topic of asset protection, if you're just worried somebody's going to sue you and take all your everything you've worked so hard for, this book is for you. So watch for that coming out shortly. All right, we've got a pretty special episode here. We've got some docs who became disabled and actually volunteered to come on the podcast and tell their story. So I'm thrilled about that. But the truth is that all of you are running this risk all the time. One of the crazy things about a medical career and other high income professionals are very similar in this respect, is that you have spent a great deal of your life learning a valuable set of skills. That's partly why you're paid so high. And it doesn't take much to keep you from being able to convert those skills, that education, that knowledge into income. If you lose that ability, it's pretty bad. And so the fact that you specialized yourself, that you spent a decade, decade and a half learning to do this, I just want to say thanks. Nobody said thank you today. Let me be the first. Okay? And what you're doing is important. It matters. It's hard. That's why they pay you so well to do it. So let's make sure you're getting everything you can for that. Let's make sure you're doing the best you can with what they're paying you. And today we'll get into our interview here about doctors who became disabled and let's hear their stories. We'll get them on the line now. All right, I have two special guests on the White Coat Investor podcast today, and we're going to hear from each of them. Our first one is Dr. Kelly Sekulovich. She's an anesthesiologist, finished training in 2016, who was disabled in 2020. And then our second guest is Dr. Shakila Angadi, a dentist who graduated from dental school in 2007 and subsequently became disabled in 2017. Welcome to the podcast, both of you.

Thank you for having us.

I want to start with Kelly's story. Kelly's story, in some ways is a little bit more of a positive interaction with the disability insurance industry than Shaquille's. But we'll go through your story kind of from the time you came out of medical school, maybe start there and bring us up till now with what's happened to you with regards to disability insurance policies and disabilities in your practice and so forth.

Sure.

So I am Kelly Sukulovich. I am a 36 year old anesthesiologist living in Illinois. In 2020, I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer while I was eight weeks pregnant. So what happened up until that point? I've kind of had sort of the quintessential straightforward path to medical school. I went to undergraduate medical school, residency, all right, in a row. Came out of College in 2008, went to medical school right straight from college, finished medical school in 2012 and then entered residency right away. 2012-2016. At some point in there, towards the end of medical school, in beginning of residency, the time is a little bit blurry. It all kind of blends together. After a while, my mom, bless her, started really talking to me about disability insurance. I come from very humble beginnings. You know, I grew up in small town Illinois, had a very comfortable life growing up, but we by no means had money. My parents did not pay for me to go to medical school. I took out major loans, the whole nine yards. So my mom really pushed me to get both life insurance and disability insurance very early on in my career to sort of cya, if you will, because she just had a lot of forethought in this. I mean, I don't think anyone can predict something terrible happening to them, but. And I don't think that's why she was making me do this, but she really, really felt like this was an important thing for me to do. And I at the time thought this was silly. I didn't want to pay this, this money. I didn't. I thought this was expensive. Why would I ever need something like this? Really, truly didn't understand even what I was paying for, to be honest. So I think, I think it was somewhere around my intern year. Beginning of my intern year, I purchased disability insurance through guardian, paid a modest premium for that, all of residency, but really didn't think too much about it. Graduated from residency, started a job out in the suburbs in private practice in 2016, hit the ground running, made partner in 2019, had a baby in 2019, then Covid hit in 2020, which was, I mean, everyone can attest to this. It was just kind of surreal. So there's the financial implications of that too. We Shut down the operating room, really shut down the hospital for a while. Hit the ground running again in the summer of 2020. At that time, my baby turned one. In June of 2020. We were weaning from nursing, and on his first birthday, I found a lump in my right armpit. I didn't really think that much of it. Didn't seem that concerning to me. It wasn't bothering me other than I knew it was there in that same week that I found that lump, found out I was pregnant and decided, well, since I'm pregnant, I should probably get this lump looked at. Went right to my OB who looked at it. Didn't think it was anything too scary. But to put it to rest, we decided we would ultrasound it. And then a whole cascade of things happened and I got diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at seven and a half weeks pregnant, which unloaded a whole other cascade of chaos because I was so early in pregnancy. There was all kinds of discussions and decisions about how we would proceed with that or if we could proceed. Eventually we decided that we were going to do lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node biopsy and chemotherapy to follow, and then a whole bunch of other things to happen after finishing chemotherapy and having a baby. So that's what we did. In August of 2020, I had lumpectomy, recovered from that for a couple weeks, three, four weeks, basically enough time for me to hit the second trimester. And then we started aggressive chemotherapy with the Red Devil and cyclophosphamide, followed by Taxol. About, I think, six cycles into my Taxol cycle. We were planning to do 12 cycles. I went into labor early, 34 weeks and had a teeny, tiny baby girl named Sloan. She came in February of 2021, finished chemo after she arrived, went through radiation, and here I am. I finished my treatment in, let's see, May of 2021 and ended up going back to work in, really September of 2021. So I was off of work, basically a full calendar year. So in all of that, we decided that my disabled date was surgery. So August of 2020, August 21, actually. And that's sort of the spiel of how I got here. It's been a long, crazy road. I sometimes look back and can't believe that I did all of that and went through that and B, survived it and sort of back in real life. But here I am now.

Let me ask for a few more specifics. When you bought that policy, you know, sounds like as an intern, where did you go to buy it? Do you remember? Did you go someplace another resident had recommended you go? Or did your mom find the agent or.

My mom. My mom had. I'm sure this was, like, her friend, like, realizing I was a doctor and, you know, kind of like jumping in on it. But my mom had a friend that did life and disability insurance with Guardian and was willing to talk to me. And actually, she was a great resource because I really felt like she did have my best interest in mind and kind of walked me through sort of the whys and hows. But at the time, I don't think I really understood. You know, you can't imagine what this is like until you're in it. Like, you don't even really think about what you might need in the way that you will need it. At least I didn't. Um, but that's how I. It was a friend of my mom's, a good. A longtime family friend.

And how big was that policy you bought as an intern? Was this a $5,000 benefit you bought?

It was.

It was $3,100. And how we even arrived to that? I think we did that somewhat based on what I was making as an intern monthly.

And did you ever exercise a future purchase option on it and buy a larger policy through Guardian?

Yes, I did so. And I ended up doing that when I hit attending hood.

And how big was your benefit at that point?

So at that point, I had the 3000. The $3100 one, and then in addition to that, 4000. So it was about $7100.

$7100 was your benefit. And then through your group, you had another policy. I think you mentioned Sun Life, a group policy they forced you to buy?

Not really forced me forced, but it was part of sort of the contract that I signed. They had this option, and I knew $7,000 wasn't going to. I mean, that wasn't even close to what I would need if I was truly fully disabled. So I think you can get out of this policy. I don't think you have to purchase it, but almost everyone in my group does, and it was an additional $10,000. So I definitely. I took it, and I'm so thankful that I did.

Yeah. Okay. And when you went back to work, did you go from 0 to 60 all at once, or did you ease back into work? Was there a residual disability period or some sort of partial disability period?

Yes.

So there was. In my mind, I went back easily, but you know how it goes. I feel like I jumped right back into it. I did So I went back, really. I went back at the end of June, beginning of July of 2021, but very, very easily. We're talking a couple hours in the morning in the operating room. I did not take any call. I didn't do any long days when I felt like I couldn't do it. I just didn't, like, work for a couple days in a row. I was off all the time to have imaging and stuff like that. So it was very, very, like part time. And then in the middle of all that, I also had a little snafu with thyroid storm. My thyroid went bonkers after being pregnant, getting chemo and radiation, and ended up in the hospital with hyperthyroidism, which I didn't even know could happen. So that was like another two week time that I was sort of not fully functional. And then I went back full time, hit the call schedule in September.

Okay. And this is in addition to the usual stresses of a professional career and two small children.

Yeah. In Covid.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. What a crazy period of life.

It was great.

All right, so we're going to turn next to Dr. Angatti, and we're not going to mention her insurance company just for legal reasons. So that allows us to talk a little bit more frankly about what she. She's been through. But suffice to say, the insurance company is one of the big six that you've heard of on our website, that you've heard on the podcast that we discuss and recommend all the time. And it's not some obscure company out there that you've never heard of. Dr. Ongatti, would you mind sharing your story?

Absolutely. So I'm a dentist by profession, went to dental school, had big dreams of fixing teeth, making differences with people's smiles, all the altruistic ideas that we have going through professional school. And so when I got finished with dental school, I really wanted to hit the ground running. Should I have done a residency? Probably. But I learned a lot on the job right out of school, and I did enter into an associateship back in 2007. And so that associateship, it taught me a lot about what I liked and what I didn't like. It also taught me nothing about being disabled, of course, but luckily I have a medical husband, and he had. He had been going through with someone that he knew of word of mouth to get his disability policy. And it was really because of him that I shifted mine because I had a basic ADA watered down nothing of a disability policy even while I was in my first year of associateship and it was really because of my husband that when I met with the agent at that time, he said, you actually need this even more than he does, because your right hand, if you don't have it, you can't do what you're supposed to be doing. Ha, ha, ha. That's never going to happen to me was obviously my mindset. And so that was why we ended up getting the policy that we did through that particular insurance company. And since I was an associate, I was working the way that I would be working, making six figures, learning on the job. Not a bad gig at that time. Of course, as many dentists do, they get tired of being an associate a few years in, especially if they have the business itch underneath them. In the dental world, it's this pathway to own a business, own a practice, do things our way, do it the way we want to do it. We're all very anal retentive people, so it's just a matter of time that many of us go into business ownership. And so I did. I bought the practice that I was an associate after I had my son taking time off. And that practice was, it was a challenge. It was being run to the ground while I was on maternity leave. It had a lot of issues. And so as a new business owner, I had no idea what I was doing. And I was putting 120% into that practice. It was a very human, it was a very humble way of learning how to run a business, let's put it that way. And so I was learning what I needed to do, but I also learned that that practice needed to move. And so I took out additional debt, moved the practice, changed everything to make it the way that I wanted to make it. And it was, as I got to a little over a year, our first anniversary, that's when I started having some trouble with my clinical skills as far as being able to do extractions. That's what came up for me. I couldn't hold a forceps the way that I wanted to hold a forceps with my right hand the way I had done for the past almost 10 years. And so obviously that proved to be a problem. And so I went to a local surgeon that I knew through somebody else who I'm also not going to mention the name for reasons, and it ended up being a ganglion cyst. And so, you know, I had done enough to go, okay, this should be a simple enough thing to deal with. It shouldn't be something that's going to be long term. And so the recommendation was to aspirate it, you know, get some relief, get back to work. X, Y and Z. First time we went in there, nothing really happened. It just split into two right at my A1 pulley area. And it didn't really help my symptoms. I was still having issues with trigger finger, so I went back again. And that second one, when he went in there, I felt this. Extreme pain doesn't even begin to describe the feeling that I felt that went all the way up to my arm. Electrical shock of a feeling, literally jumping out of my chair, said a bunch of curse words, and then chalked it up to, I have to go through this to get better and get back to my career. Well, what ended up happening is I got sent to PT to rehabilitate my trigger finger so I could get back to my job. And at that point, I started getting symptoms of burning in my hand, feeling like my hand was on fire, feeling like my hand was being cut with a thousand glass shards. And it was getting to the point where even in work, I was having trouble wearing a glove. And so obviously, that's not ideal for a dentist. It's not ideal. It's not even what the physical therapist, I think she was in shock that this is what was happening, because she went, this isn't right. This is not what's supposed to be happening. Go back to your doctor, get more tests, see what's going on. And so that's what I did, obviously. Went back, did the MRIs, did all the electrical conduction tests, all these things. Well, somewhere in that conversation, and mind you, this is still. Without having a diagnosis, I was told what you're doing at work isn't helping. Whatever's going on, you should really think about not working anymore. So I'm this new business owner. I don't have an associate yet. I'm just making a profit. So I'm finally seeing the rainbow end of this lovely initiation of business ownership, and I'm being told that I shouldn't be working. And it was a really tough time because I had to figure out, how do I pay my staff, have my overhead paid for, and still do the right thing, whatever that is. And so we made the difficult decision to sell the practice, because even with temp health, it just wasn't enough to sustain the livelihood of the people who depended on me and the patients that I had in the community. And so I. We did that. We sold the practice. We also sold a home, but that's a whole different story. And we ended up moving for personal reasons. And in that it still took another year, so about a year and a half before I got the diagnosis of crps, Chronic Regional Pain syndrome, which is the diagnosis of exclusion. And so of course I had been to almost 10 practitioners trying to find what this was. All the meanwhile getting back to why, where I'm on this podcast, fighting with disability, because how is your pain real when you don't have a diagnosis? And how do I prove that when nobody knows what this is? And so I had not as smooth of a time dealing with one of the big six disability companies because I had to not just find a diagnosis for myself, but I also had to find, fight or figure out how to fight. Because nobody tells you how to fight unless they listen to this podcast with one of these companies and really advocate to go through this journey where there were multiple things that happened that they tried to dissuade me from going through with all of this. And so where things ended up going, my disability got denied in that process. I had incomplete medical records in that process where there wasn't a specificity to what I couldn't, couldn't and cannot do, which I'd be happy to share, what to watch out for, when, if and when you would ever have to apply for disability. And so it did get overturned with the help of my lovely legal team. Best thing I ever did. And because of that, I did finally get my disability policy. Unfortunately for me, dentistry is not in the cards anytime soon for me to return to. I am on year four of dealing with this pain disease. My part time to full time job is dealing with my condition. This is the first year in four years that I've been able to hold my son's hand, hold my husband's hand and eat with my right hand. I've been very good about my party trick of doing everything with my left. And so the reality of it is with something like crps, it's chronic, it's not going to end anytime soon. And the idea of coming back as a right handed dentist to work for as long as I'm going to work for, until retirement is probably not in the cards for me. But there's a, there's a lot of lessons and life lessons to be learned. So I can't say that I'm unhappy with all of this. It went really fast, it's been along really fast, but it's allowed me to reevaluate what's important. And I'm here now sharing whatever I can to help somebody else avoid all the issues that I had.

Yeah, well, let's dig some more of the details out of there. What year did you buy the policy? Do you remember? Was it 2007, right. When you came out or a few years later?

I bought the policy in 2008.

2008. Okay. And how big was your policy? Do you remember? What was the face amount on it?

The policy was up to the maximum that they allow me at that time with an associate, so about 60%. It was enough to cover what I needed to cover at that time.

Okay, so about 60% of what you were making as an associate.

As an associate, yes.

So that's still typically 60% of. That's usually a five figure amount.

Yes.

That is not a gob ton of money by any means.

Right.

Okay. And you're married to a physician at this point, so you do have some other income in the household, so that's helpful, obviously. So when did you first call the disability insurance company? At what point in this process?

So I called the disability insurance company when the physician I spoke to said, you really should think about stopping your practice. You really should think about stopping your clinical side of dentistry. It's not helping you at all. The agent that I used was a captive agent at that time. He didn't give me the right advice. That's what I'm going to say. Since we're not using names, I can say that. And the advice that he gave me, even though I had a residual rider, was you cannot apply for disability until you are completely disabled. Sell your practice first, then apply. Now that takes a while. I mean, I had started contacting the, the insurance company around January of that year. By the time my practice sold was April of 2018. So that was almost four months that could have been considered in that waiting period. That wasn't, of course, down the line, once things got denied, I actually reached out to Larry Keller, who was shocked that that was the type of advice I was given. Given that I had a rider and going back at it, I should have and could have claimed sooner than I did.

I mean, that's remarkably fast, I think for selling a practice. Four months is actually really impressive.

Yeah.

Did you have any, what kind of insurance did you have on the practice? Did you have any sort of business continuation insurance or any, anything on the practice that would have allowed, you know, at least a 6 or 12 month disability for you to write it out? Did you have anything like that or ever consider buying it?

Oh, how I wish I had something like this to listen to back then. No, I didn't. I think that's the Number one thing I actually tell my dental colleagues when I've spoken about this is that they do need business interruption insurance because the stress of paying your overhead, plus playing your staff, plus paying, you know, help that's helping you in as far as the clinical dentistry to run a business and run it on reserves that you have. I'm glad I had those reserves, let's put it that way. But those reserves were running. Those were running through pretty fast. When you have a dental practice that's making what it's making, I mean, you know, you're influxing, you know, 30 to 33,000amonth. And so you need to thank goodness I had the reserve to help get to the point of selling that practice. But it very well could have gone very poorly. And if I had business interruption insurance, it would have been a lot less stressful, I think, at that time, because there's a lot of moving parts when it comes to selling something illiquid like patient charts. It's one thing if you're selling a building, but when you're selling a dental practice, it's very illiquid. So the way it's evaluated is not the smoothest. It's not the way we think of when we sell real estate.

Do you think you got a good price on the practice or do you think you basically fire sold it?

I think I got. Well, I come from a place of privilege, obviously, being married to medicine. At this point, my husband wasn't attending. I do think that we were at the point where I almost finished selling off or selling off, paying off my student loans. And so I guess where I'm coming with this is, I don't think it was a fire sale. Do I think I could have gotten more for the practice if it was a year after I sold the practice? I absolutely. Because the numbers were just starting to turn around because I moved the practice. And so the way I sold it was based on numbers in transition versus numbers of stability that it was in the first two years. And so, yeah, I do think I sold it for less than what I could have had it been even a year or six months later. I think the numbers would have been different for me.

Okay, so you're told sell the practice, you sell the practice. Miraculously, four months later, at this point, you're still not getting disability insurance payments. So you go back to the company and what do they say?

So there's a whole process that people don't really talk about where they, you know, they're talking to you via email. They're Talking to you via phone. There's someone that even came up to where I was living at that time, interviewing me with a bunch of different questions. I mean, he even had the audacity to say, well, your husband's in medicine. Why do you need to file disability?

Wow.

I mean, I don't even have nice or polite words in response to that. I think I was just in shock that someone would even have the courage to say that to my face, which they did. So, you know, all of this that's going on with fighting with them, it's fighting with them in the sense that I knew the best thing I could do was to keep pursuing that diagnosis. Because without that diagnosis, every paper, piece of paper that kept coming back is, what's the proof? What's the proof? What's the proof? And when you don't have that, you're simply giving them symptom after symptom after symptom, but in their eyes, they're trying to prove otherwise. And so there isn't a whole lot going on unless you know better. You know, as far as going back and forth, a lot of tears were shed. I can say that.

At what point did the lawyer get involved?

The lawyer got involved after the disability insurance denied my claim. I wish it didn't take that to get legal involved. I had inklings where somewhere in that process where I was going, you know, there has to be a better way than this. But to be honest, being disabled as a healthcare professional, it's pretty taboo. Nobody wants to talk about it. It's not pretty, it's not sexy, it's not something anyone wants to think that can happen to them. So, you know, the shame that comes with being disabled and still trying to do what you're doing is a whole different topic for a whole different episode, I think. And so once the lawyer got involved, it was a very different conversation. It wasn't just the conversation of, how do we go about and appeal this. It was, let's go back to every medical record, every conversation, every transaction, where and what are they doing? And specifically with the lawyer. The lawyer that I hired was a disability insurance lawyer. Not just any lawyer, someone who, for a living fights with the big six, fights with every single insurance company. They know the tricks. This particular lawyer actually worked on the other side with all of this. And so he came with a lot of experience with worth every single penny. That helped me appeal the case, which it did appeal, but that took a couple more months. So total, from when it was denied to when I actually got benefits Was almost a year.

Wow, that's a long time to go, particularly for somebody that maybe doesn't come from such a privileged position. If you had been the sole bread earner, I mean, your family at this point's now gone through all its reserves and essentially living in poverty. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's a. It's a pretty serious issue to go for a year without that payment. So did they eventually give you back payment?

They did eventually give me back payment. And to your point, I am still paying not just for my expenses. And yes, I had a little bit of loan, which we paid off, not just for my expenses, not just for the things that we think of, but the medical care of finding a diagnosis when you're going to 10 different practitioners, multiple MRIs, trying any palliative treatments in and out of the box. I mean, I'm a girl of science, and I tried everything, believe me. And so that costs money, and if you want to feel better, you have to throw money at it. And so it was not an easy year. But as you said, I do come from a place of privilege being married to medicine, but nobody ever goes into any of these fields, especially as a female, thinking that they would be dependent on a spouse, you know, to pay their bills should this happen. So I think one the things that we did have right, is we did have contingencies, we did have savings, we did keep our overhead down with a lot of things. We moved. We really adjusted our lifestyle. So we were not living in poverty, but we were living in a way where we had to prioritize our medical bills because disability. Not only does disability not kick in, but it didn't even account for all these extra expenses that we didn't know would be an issue. And most people don't.

How much did the attorney end up getting paid?

Well, you know, whatever he got paid was still less than 10% of what they paid me out, let's put it that way. So, you know, it was worth paying the attorney, even if it was more than that. I'm joking with that number, by the way. But you know, it was worth it because I will say the mental anguish of being in chronic pain and the psychosomatic toll that that takes when you're in something like crps, where my autonomic nervous system is in dysfunction. So the more stress I have, the more pain I have. And that pain is not, oh, I just nicked my knee. It's. My hand is on fire. My hand is in a sling. My hand was purple by the time I Got diagnosed in a sling tonic without being able to move. So all of the stress of fighting with disability, I wanted to quit. I remember talking to my husband and saying, this is not worth it. Like, I'm losing my sanity trying to get this to work. And pain psychology was a great thing for me. But again, not everybody's privileged to have a spouse that has insurance that can actually help support the multimodal approach that I needed to take to control this disease. But it's not an easy one.

Well, let's turn this now to make it a little bit more conversational. Kelly, you don't mention this fight with an insurance company. Did you have to fight at all, or did they just pay? What. What happened with your claim process?

I. My story is nowhere near as complicated as Shaquille was, but it's not. It's no easy task to. To get from point A to point B with these insurance companies. You know, there's so many hoops that you have to jump through. You know, I just got diagnosed with breast cancer. I have a toddler at home. I'm pregnant. I'm terrified. I'm not working. And so much of my time and energy was spent, like, gathering all of the paperwork and data and medical records and phone calls and all of those things that you have to do and provide to get your claim off the ground. I mean, I had a 90 day elimination period, and every single single day of it was spent doing stuff for this. And my claim did not get approved until, like, a couple days, actually, after the 90 day elimination period. So it's. Yeah, it's definitely not a. Oh, I have this problem. Let me submit this claim. Let's sign on the line, and you get your money. It was. It was a ton of work. I didn't have lawyers involved, but there are many times I wish I did because I didn't really know what I was doing. Like, I. And I'm sick and I'm scared, and I have way bigger problems that I'm trying to deal with. So I oftentimes felt like I was just kind of, like, doing what was asked of me to get to the next step without really thinking about what I was doing, if that makes sense.

All right, so this question for both of you, in retrospect, would you have called a lawyer on day one?

Yes. Oh, absolutely.

So your first call really is not necessarily even to your insurance agent. It's to an attorney to help manage the process.

Interestingly, my first call was to a lawyer, but it was for estate planning. That was literally the first person I called. But I didn't think about the disability side of it until much, much later. I knew I was going to have to likely file disability. But that came several weeks down the road as it sort of evolved. And yeah, I wish I would have called a lawyer and just had them at least look at things and tell me, tell me how to do it well, because I really was just flying by the seat of my pants. I mean, I don't, I don't, I didn't know anything about this.

Yeah, I would say even before filing, have that lawyer walk you through not just the process, but what you need. Because my doctor at that time wrote I should not be working, but did not specifically mention what I could and couldn't do in my medical record that ended up being a big chronic problem. And I'm a dentist and I don't know how familiar my medical counterparts are with what we actually do with our hands, which was an issue. And I'm not making blanket statements, but my particular surgeon had no idea. He thought I cleaned teeth. I'm going, no. The last time I cleaned teeth was 11 years ago. You know, I'm taking out teeth and doing all this other stuff. So the best thing that my lawyer gave me as a dentist was a job description. It literally, we send worked on it, it took about a week back and forth where it was a 12 page document on literally how I use my right hand, what I use it for, how I use it for, what kind of strength I need in it. I mean, the whole 10 without that job description, I couldn't go back to that doctor, which I did and said, this is what I do. Could you honestly say when you talked to me and you recommended me to get out of practice, that you understood that this is what I couldn't do and it was from that amendment that the disability insurance had to go back and cover. I also had issues because I had a consulting coaching side gig where they questioned that somewhere in the process where they said, well, that's an additional source of income. You know, they'll do anything whether it's ethical or not, as I've discussed earlier. And they questioned that as well. They said, well, you know, you're, you're doing emotional intelligence coaching. You know, what's that to say? Now granted, I had an onoc, you know, type policy, so they shouldn't have been questioning that. But they did and they will. And they, as a business owner, they will go into every financial aspect of your business. That's what a lot of dentists don't realize how invasive that is. They will go into every uc, too. They will go into every form, every employment form, every number that comes in and out of that practice. What your overhead is everything. And so when you don't have that ready for the insurance company, it's not just your medical records are invasive enough. But I almost feel like the practice financials are like. I mean, it's a whole different set of questions that they asked that, frankly, nobody thinks they have to give anybody until they ask for them.

Now, it's interesting to go back to the beginning of the process. Now, you guys both had what I consider to be relatively high quality or very high quality disability insurance policies, and they eventually, you know, maybe after the involvement of a lawyer and a great deal of time, eventually paid or are paying. But if we go back to the beginning, neither one of you seemed all that jazzed or excited or focused on getting disability insurance in place at all. In both of your cases you mentioned it was another family member that kind of pushed you to do it. What would you tell other doctors that are healthy interns or recent dental school graduates about buying a policy? What would you tell them their approach should be?

It's something that you hope you're never going to use, but when you need to use it, it has to be purposeful for you. It's not just another expense that you're writing a check at the end of the day, it's, this is for what you never want to experience. But if you do, you have yourself covered.

Yeah. Your life can change in one phone call. Mine did. I've never been sick. I was a college athlete. I think I had one IV in my entire life before any of this happened. And I just got thrown into this world of really, I mean, terror. I had a baby on the way and a baby at home. And then on top of that, I got thrown into this. How I am the sole breadwinner in my family. My husband stays home with our kids. And on top of all of this other stuff I had going on, it became like, how are we going to live Situation, like, who's going to pay the bills? And it was. It was terrifying. I mean, it's scary. Shaquille hit it right on the head. You don't ever want to have to use this. But, man, if you ever do, you want to know exactly what you're getting and how to get it, because it's. It's overwhelming. And we're smart people, right? We're smart, highly trained people who think they can Learn anything. And to get thrown into something like this, it's overwhelming. You, you really need to know. You need to know what you bought. You need to know what you bought and what it can do for you.

And as you look back, did you consider other policies? What caused you to buy the one you bought? Was it really the only one presented to you or was there kind of a debate and you chose this one over another one, do you recall?

So I didn't really do any shopping. You know, my mom kind of presented this to me. It was one of the big six. I knew it was a reputable company. It was on par with what I knew. Some of my friends that had disability policies were paying and sort of what it covered. And so for me, naive 25 year old, I was like, oh great, this sounds adequate. I really didn't know what I was buying at all. Later on, when I bought another policy and then signed my contract with the group I ultimately joined, I knew a little bit more of what I was, was getting into. But no, I mean, I wasn't shopping around. And if you would have asked me before this happened exactly what my policies entailed, I could have given you broad strokes, but I, I didn't know the specifics at all. And I should have.

Yeah, I had, I had a captive agent. He didn't give me any other choices at that time. It was word of mouth. In retrospect, I think going with someone more independent, where they can present multiple options for you or shop around. I mean we shop around for houses and we shop around for cars. Why would we not shop around for something like this? It doesn't take that long. It really doesn't. And most people would be more than willing to give you a quote, at least as a dentist. What is covered, what is not, what are the. I know the basics will probably stay the same, but it doesn't hurt to have more than one option and explore that. I don't think it's a regret necessarily, but knowing how we live now, where we would shop around, I wish we, we did just to see what else was out there and whether there was something or as process, especially when it comes to filing claims, that would have been a little bit more seamless.

Yeah, I would second the process. The process, it's not even so much the policy, it's the process of how to get it off the ground. I mean I, they could have told me anything. I almost felt desperate. I was in a desperate place. Right. I'm about to embark on this terrible journey. I need Pay my bills and pay my student loans and take care of my family. They could have told me anything. They could have told me to do anything, and I would have done it because I just needed to be able to function so that I was completely over my head starting off.

So despite the troubles you both had, despite all the hassle and work, you'd still recommend that a new doc buys a policy 100%?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, still worth it. All right. And what do you think about people dropping their policy later in their career? Maybe they get to the point where they feel like they're financially independent, you know, do you think they should drop their policy? Right. Then maybe hold onto it for a few more years, carry it to the end of their career? What do you think about somebody maybe at the other end, once they've built up a little bit of wealth?

I think as long as they can foresee all of these expenses alongside their financial independence, I mean, those are the things that are actually going to be, you know, a factor. If they can foresee that and they can comfortably anticipate that, then. Then I understand. But they have to overestimate what they would need, and that's where people kind of fall short. They underestimate what they would need instead of overestimating. And if they can do that, sure. But the cost of my medical bills still, and I'm four and a half years into this, are no joke. So if it's someone that's financially independent, great. But what are you prepared for? When life hands you whatever it's going to hand you, whether it's life threatening like Kelly's, or career ending like mine, what are you prepared for?

What do you think, Kelly? What advice would you give somebody?

Yeah, you have to ensure what you can't pay for in the event of a crisis. So if you're financially independent and you can foresee that you can match the expenses of life, then no, I don't think you need this. But if you're someone like me and you're less than five years out of your training and you're just hitting the. I just made partner. We just survived, Covid. I still have hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans. Life is expensive. It's expensive just to live a normal life. And if you're sick on top of it, with all kinds of things going on, you have to be able to feel financially comfortable. You don't want to add that stress to your life in addition to something that's already so supremely stressful. I had thoughts about that all the time. That's why I called the estate lawyer. The first person I called was to make sure things were in line if something terrible happened to me in this.

So in retrospect, do you think you bought an appropriately sized policy? Do you wish you'd bought a bigger one, a smaller one? What in retrospect, do you think about the amount of insurance you bought?

Yeah, I have some regrets in mind in the sense that where I was I wish I had bought more and I did have the opportunity to and I didn't. When I was in my second year of practice, ownership before I transitioned into a new building and taking out all of that debt and a bit of a pay cut, self serving pay cut. I wish I had increased before that transition knowing that I was going to take as many startup businesses do, especially in the dental world where you do take a pay cut for a year or two until you get your profits going and whatnot when you make that big of a change. I wish I had increased my option at that time, but was it nothing that I had before? No, it was enough to cover my expenses and the things that I needed and for that I'm grateful. But if I could go back and do it, I would say for any dentist who is going through transitions where they are buying practices, remodeling, doing a startup, get your policy where it's more stable and then evaluate once you get to the point where you can have more before you make those big steps. That way you have that extra coverage if you need it. And I know that's kind of gaming things, but not really. You're just anticipating life a little bit more and anticipating your expenses a little bit more.

Kelly, how about you? Do you get the right amount? Wish you bought more? Where are you at with that?

So I actually think I had sort of a perfect amount. I'm really glad that I increased my policy when I came out of residency. I certain that certainly wouldn't have been enough if I would have just had the one policy, it covered my expenses and I never felt financially strapped in any of this, which was a blessing. And on top of that, I would say I've been an avid white coat investor lister for a long time and in some weird ways I was just very prepared for this from a financial standpoint. We had our emergency fund and we'd been paying off loans and we didn't have any other debt besides our mortgage and my school loan. So you never think this will happen to you, but you need to plan your life like it might because when it does happen to you. It's so stunning. And you're just kind of scrambling to keep your head above water and you don't want to be worried about how you're going to pay your car payment or how you're going to pay for daycare or whatever expenses you have. So, yeah, I think I had a perfectly adequate amount.

You know, it's interesting. I've run into at least one doc whose disability benefit was $2,500. Disabled doc living on it, long term, you know, $2,500, basically, as I understand it, a policy that was bought during residency and never increased. So that's really important, I think, to remember to increase that amount when you become an attending. I mean, you can get as much as they'll sell you as a resident and it's still not enough. But so remember to increase that. Of course. Now, inflation is currently running at about 7%, 9% if you're out west and these companies will sell riders that result in the policy going up maybe not as much as inflation is right now, but 3 or 6% a year, depending on what policy and what rider you buy. Shakila. Now, you're looking at basically presumably a permanent disability that you'll probably be receiving this benefit from now until the time you're 65. Did you get an inflation rider on your policy, and if so, what are your thoughts on that?

I did. I did get a COLA adjustment cost of living, and I'm glad I did because obviously it's not keeping up with, as you mentioned, inflation at that moment, but it's enough that every year that goes by, and, you know, now that I've been into this, you know, three years, not four years of collecting benefits, you see it and you see your expenses raise and you see that, that pay, that payout also raised, which helps. Definitely helps. So definitely don't skimp on that. And it's not much of all the things in your policy, it's actually the future. It's just not that much the cost of living adjustment, but it's something that can be overlooked if you didn't add it in. So add it in.

Yeah, I also had a cola 3%. I didn't really make much use of it. I used my disability policy for one year, a little less than one year, 10 months. But had this gone on any longer, especially with inflation right now, I would have been glad to have that for sure.

Now, our time's getting short, but I wanted to give each of you a chance to tell us if there's Something else we didn't cover today on this topic, or even maybe not on this topic that you'd like to share with our listeners. I mean, this will probably be listened to by 40,000 people by the time all is said and done. And maybe I didn't ask all the right questions I should have asked today or we didn't cover the right subjects. What subject have we not yet talked about that you think people ought to know about this process? And why don't we start with you, Kelly?

Well, you kind of preach this all the time, and I was still sort of in the time of new attending hood when this happened. But I really cannot stress enough how important it is to live like a resident those first few years when you come out. Because one of the biggest things for me was that I never felt like we were underwater because we never really adjusted our way of life to my attending salary from my resident salary other than making bigger student loan payments. That was really, that was our big cost inflation. You just, you have to prepare. You don't want to think bad things about your future. Right. You want to, we all assume we're living forever and we're going to be healthy forever, but really you have to prepare for catastrophe. And maybe that's the anesthesiologist in me speaking. You know, I'm always prepared for A, B, C, D, E and F. But when you do that and you're buying these things and you're, you're paying a lot of money, disability insurance is expensive. You need to know what you're buying and how to work it. I really cannot stress that enough. And if that means calling a lawyer and having someone walk through it, even if it's just a one time, sit down and explain it to you. I really think that that is the biggest thing I wish I would have done is have someone, an independent person, not someone from the disability company, somebody who knows what they're talking about and isn't trying to sell you something. Sit down and explain exactly what it is that you are or are not buying. It's so important.

Okay, Dr. Ongatti, what do you have for us?

Well, being that my son side career other than dentistry was emotional intelligence, I'm going to say mental health. I think the mental health toll that the disability process takes is it's not talked about enough. I think that when you become, when you go from the position of being a clinician to the position of being a patient and having to advocate for yourself in a medical type of environment, on top of having to advocate for yourself through an insurance type of environment. It takes a lot of strength that you don't have. And so having support team, having people that you can talk to, and being really kind of digging deep to what you need and asking for help when you need it, whether it's a lawyer, whether it's a psychologist, whether it's a spouse, whether it's friends, I think that's really under talked about because that process, as Kelly mentioned, is just not easy. It's not for the weary. And you're already struggling in more than one way, physically, mentally, and emotionally. So that psychosocial despair that you feel as a person who is disabled is very real. And I luckily, through my platform, I do get dentists, a lot of female dentists that reach out to me, afraid to talk to people about what they need to go through. And I'm now going to push them to this podcast to listen to, but they get very hesitant to ask for help and figure out those steps. And, oh, I'm having some back pain. Should I do this? Oh, I need to retire in two years. I have RA in my hands or I have fibromyalgia. All these different conditions, and they don't know. Know where to start and they don't know how to go. And I think, you know, if there's any advice I can give is when you're healthy, take care of your mental health. When you're not healthy, take care of it more. And you know, if you don't have that, you can't have anything else. And so I think I could talk for hours on my soapbox with this. But thank you for giving me that five seconds to. To stress that enough.

Awesome. Well, we appreciate both of you sharing your wisdom on the podcast. Dr. Sokulovich and Dr. Angati, thank you so much for being on the White Coat Investor podcast.

Thanks for having us.

I thought that was a pretty awesome episode. I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed making it. It's really an important subject. I mean, if you sign up for the White Coat Investor newsletter, what's the first email I send you? The first chapter of both that email series and of the book that grew out of it, the White Coat Investors Financial Boot Camp, Chapter one, Disability Insurance. It's really important. It's a very important part of a physician's financial plan, and you got to have it. You got to have it. You got to have enough of it. Even though it's probably going to be at least a little bit of a fight to get it. Should you ever actually need it to actually get the benefits, it's so worth it. I mean, just imagine where you would be, where your family would be if you had one of these things happen to you, right? They happen all the time. You know the statistics that the insurance agents share that one out of seven doctors gets disabled. Now maybe that's a little bit generous because they're trying to sell disability insurance policies. But Even if it's 1 out of 10 or 1 out of 15, right. Those are pretty high odds. So you got to get this stuff. You don't have disability insurance in place. Get disability insurance in place. If you're not sure if you have enough of it, go get it evaluated. Okay? We have recommended agents for a reason because hundreds of white coat investors have used them and had a great experience. That's why we have these agents. That's why they advertise so much, because it's such an important aspect of your financial plan. Getting quality disability and life insurance should be the first financial chore for a doctor to complete. Most docs don't have the ideal policy for their gender, specialty, state or health status. And one in seven doctors get disabled at some point during their career. Because these policies can only be purchased through brokers, we put together a list of vetted agents who are experienced with working with the specific needs of medical professionals and who have your best interest at heart. If you have questions about insurance and what kind of policies would be the best fit for you, check out our insurance recommended list@whitecoatinvestor.com insurance and feel the peace of mind that comes with knowing you have the optimal policy in place. You can do this and the white coat investor can help. Don't forget about the two promotions I told you about earlier in the episode. The asset protection book is going to be coming out. Watch for it on Amazon. There will be more on the blog about it. But it's a really good book. I put a lot of time into it and I think it's going to teach you what you need to know on the subject. Also, please help us give away some money to financial educators. If there's somebody you know, right? A colleague, a professor, heck, a resident. No, I don't think he can be a resume. You got to be practicing attending that is educating their peers or their trainees about finances. Please Recommend them. Right. Whitecoatinvestor.com White Educator is where you can nominate them for the award. Okay. Thanks to those leaving us a five star review that does help spread the word. Most recent one comes in says the gold standard. Listen to this. Read his blog Profit 5 stars. Short and sweet. We appreciate the review. All right, well, we've come to the end of our time. I've got a plane to catch in about 15 minutes, and so I've got to get off this podcast and and get on the road over to the airport. But until next week, keep your head up, your shoulders back. You've got this and we can help. See you next time on the White Coat Investor Podcast.

The hosts of the White Coat Investor Podcast are not licensed accountants, attorneys, or financial advisors. This podcast is free entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for special, specific advice relating to your situation.