Today, we are talking with practicing emergency physician and financial planner, Dr. Bryan Jepson. Dr. Jepson shares his journey from emergency medicine to opening a clinic to help children with autism before finding his way back to the ER and then into finance. In addition to being a physician and financial planner, he is also a chartered special needs consultant. Bryan has two children with autism, and he shares his personal experience and his professional expertise around financial planning for families who have children with special needs. Navigating special needs trusts, ABLE accounts, Social Security, Medicare, and more can be complicated, and it requires a lot of work and time. We hope this episode helps anyone who is learning how to financially care for and support a special needs loved one.


 

Helping Your Disabled Child Qualify for Governmental Programs Like Medicaid and Social Security

The discussion between Dr. Jim Dahle and Dr. Bryan Jepson dove into the unique financial and logistical challenges faced by families raising children with special needs. Bryan emphasized that Medicaid, often perceived as a welfare program, should instead be viewed as an entitlement program that high-income families have contributed to through taxes like FICA and Social Security. For families with special needs children, Medicaid is an essential resource, providing services like housing, vocational training, health insurance, and long-term care. These services are not always accessible through private pay, making Medicaid indispensable—even for affluent families. Special needs individuals often require lifelong care, and Medicaid helps mitigate significant expenses that could otherwise deplete a family’s resources. Raising a child with disabilities frequently leads to opportunity costs—such as one parent leaving the workforce to provide care, further impacting the family’s financial stability.

Bryan explained that qualifying for Medicaid hinges on eligibility for SSI (Social Security Income), which can be challenging. He said parents must shift their mindset to focus on the limitations their child faces without assistance, which is a difficult task when parents are naturally inclined to highlight their child’s capabilities. But to qualify for SSI, you must show that your child cannot perform the typical functions of non-disabled people. Eligibility becomes simpler once the child turns 18, as it is then based on the child’s own assets and income rather than the parents'. This milestone marks a crucial turning point in planning, as it enables more families to secure the support their child needs. However, parents must be careful to structure financial arrangements—such as using special needs trusts—to avoid disqualifying their child from these benefits. The asset limit for SSI eligibility is $2,000, and income has to remain under very low thresholds, making careful financial planning critical.

Before a child reaches 18, their eligibility for Medicaid and SSI depends on their parents’ financial situation, which often disqualifies families with higher incomes. Exceptions exist for conditions requiring substantial medical care, but these are relatively rare. Bryan said after the child turns 18, the assessment shifts entirely to their own financial circumstances, opening eligibility to more families. This is a very important moment that requires careful planning during this transitional phase, as the child’s financial independence becomes a factor in securing benefits. Families are also encouraged to explore additional government programs—such as vocational rehabilitation—which provide job training, placement, and sometimes funding for education. These programs aim to foster independence, reducing reliance on Medicaid over time. SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) is another option, particularly if the parents are retired, disabled, or deceased. Bryan explained that, unlike SSI, SSDI has no asset limits, and it may qualify the individual for Medicare. States also offer Medicaid waivers that cover a variety of services, like adult day programs and personal assistance, though availability varies widely.

Bryan highlighted the importance of nonprofit and advocacy organizations in supporting families of children with special needs. Groups like the Autism Resource Center (ARC) or the Autism Society of America provide resources, guidance, and advocacy specific to particular disabilities. These organizations, often parent-driven, offer critical assistance to families navigating the emotional and logistical complexities of raising a special needs child. Connecting with these groups early can alleviate the overwhelming feelings that accompany a new diagnosis and provide direction in finding essential resources.

The financial and emotional impact of raising a child with special needs extends far beyond immediate care needs. Parents often face significant sacrifices, such as reduced work hours or even leaving the workforce entirely, leading to lost income and investment opportunities. These opportunity costs, compounded over time, make it vital to utilize all available resources to offset financial strain. Medicaid, SSI, and other support systems not only provide immediate assistance but also help families plan for their child’s long-term care, including housing, vocational training, and financial security.

More information here:

When Life Derails Your Plans

Financial Planning for a Child with a Disability

 

Tools to Help Provide Financially for Your Special Needs Child

The conversation then moved to the use of ABLE accounts. ABLE accounts are especially useful for special needs people who must stay under strict asset and income limits to maintain eligibility for SSI and Medicaid. ABLE accounts, created under the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act of 2014, allow families to save and manage funds for a disabled beneficiary without disqualifying them from government benefits. These accounts are administered by states, often through the same programs that manage 529 accounts, and they provide flexibility in choosing a state’s ABLE program that offers the best benefits.

A key advantage of ABLE accounts is that contributions up to the annual gift tax limit—$18,000 in 2024 and $19,000 in 2025—do not count as assets when determining SSI and Medicaid eligibility. Also, if the beneficiary is employed, they can contribute their own income up to the federal poverty limit (approximately $15,000 annually), making it possible for them to save additional funds. These accounts provide significant flexibility, as funds can be used for a wide range of expenses—including housing, transportation, education, and healthcare—without the need for a trustee. They also offer practical tools like debit cards and checks, granting people more independence in managing their finances.

ABLE accounts do have limitations. The total account balance must remain below $100,000 to avoid being counted as an asset for SSI purposes, although Medicaid eligibility often remains intact. Over time, account balances can reach the state-specific 529 plan limits (typically between $400,000-$500,000), but the practical usability of these accounts is constrained by the $100,000 SSI threshold. Another downside is the Medicaid Payback Provision, which allows the government to recover Medicaid expenses from the account after the beneficiary’s death. While some states are phasing out this provision, it remains a significant consideration for families in most states.

Bryan explained that ABLE accounts are particularly beneficial for managing day-to-day expenses, but they may not be sufficient for long-term financial planning due to their contribution and balance limits. For larger asset needs, families often turn to special needs trusts, which can hold more substantial funds and avoid the Medicaid Payback Provision in many cases. But ABLE accounts remain an effective complement to other planning tools, offering simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and broad spending flexibility.

A unique feature of ABLE accounts is the ability to roll over funds from 529 education savings plans, which may be underutilized if a child’s disability precludes college attendance. Families can transfer up to the annual contribution limit, allowing them to reallocate existing savings into an account that better suits their child’s needs. Secure Act 2.0 also expanded ABLE account eligibility, increasing the qualifying age for the onset of disability from 26 to 46. This change broadens access to ABLE accounts for individuals who become disabled later in life, enhancing their utility for a wider range of beneficiaries.

Another important tool is special needs trusts. They are an essential tool for families planning for the long-term financial security of a disabled individual while maintaining their eligibility for government benefits. Bryan explained that there are two primary types: first-party and third-party trusts. They are each suited to different circumstances based on the source of the funds. First-party trusts are created using the disabled individual’s own money, often arising from legal settlements or inheritances. These trusts are critical to prevent disqualification from government programs like SSI and Medicaid. However, they come with a Medicaid Payback Provision, meaning any remaining funds after the beneficiary’s death must be paid back to the state for Medicaid services received. First-party trusts can also be more complex and costly to establish, sometimes requiring corporate trustees or court involvement. For smaller amounts, families can opt for pooled trusts managed by nonprofit organizations, which pool resources for cost-effective management while still protecting benefits.

Third-party trusts, on the other hand, are funded with money from others—such as parents, grandparents, or other relatives—and are the most common type used in special needs planning. These trusts offer significant advantages, including no Medicaid Payback Provision, flexibility in funding, and the ability to name secondary beneficiaries who can inherit unused funds after the primary beneficiary’s death. A third-party trust is designed to supplement rather than replace government benefits, so careful wording is critical to ensure compliance. The trustee plays a crucial role in managing and distributing the funds to enhance the beneficiary’s quality of life, providing oversight and ensuring the funds are used appropriately.

Bryan explained that while third-party trusts are highly effective for long-term planning, they have limitations. For instance, using trust funds to pay for certain expenses like housing can reduce SSI benefits. To work around this, families may combine trusts with ABLE accounts, funneling money from the trust into the ABLE account to cover such costs without jeopardizing government assistance. Trusts also require more administration, including tax filings and the involvement of a trustee, which can be cumbersome and costly. To avoid these complexities during their lifetime, some parents choose to establish testamentary trusts that are funded only upon their death, reducing the administrative burden while they are alive.

Deciding how much to fund a trust or an ABLE account depends on various factors, including the family’s financial resources, their confidence in the longevity of government programs, and the specific needs of the disabled individual. Some families may allocate a few hundred thousand dollars to a trust, while others may contribute millions, depending on their child’s expected lifetime expenses and the desired standard of living. Financial planning plays a critical role in this process, as parents must ensure their own financial stability before addressing their child’s needs.

Bryan said whether to fund a special needs trust during the parents’ lifetime or after their death is another critical decision. Funding a trust during life allows parents to “test drive” the arrangement, ensuring the trustee understands their role and allowing families to use the trust for current expenses such as vacations or enrichment activities. This can provide peace of mind and a smoother transition when the parents can no longer manage the trust. Every family’s situation is unique, and the decision will depend on their specific goals, resources, and the level of independence they want to provide for their disabled child.

Special needs trusts in combination with ABLE accounts offer a robust framework for ensuring a disabled individual’s financial security while preserving their access to essential government benefits. By tailoring these tools to their specific circumstances, families can create a comprehensive plan that supports their loved one’s needs throughout their lifetime and beyond. This process is complicated, and Bryan recommended getting trustworthy and proper financial and legal guidance to ensure your plan is both effective and compliant with relevant regulations.

More information here:

The Risk of Retirement

 

Is Permanent Life Insurance a Good Idea If You Have a Special Needs Child? 

Bryan said though he generally aligns with the philosophy that term life insurance is the better choice for most families, he acknowledged that planning for a special needs child often involves unique considerations. Life insurance is fundamentally about transferring risk, and for families with special needs children, the financial risk extends beyond the typical single generation. Planning must account for the lifetime needs of the child, often necessitating strategies that span decades.

In situations where families feel they may not have sufficient resources to self-fund their child’s care, Bryan sees permanent life insurance as a potentially valuable tool. A second-to-die policy, which pays out upon the death of the second insured parent, is often a more cost-effective option. Certain policies, like universal life insurance, can be structured so that the cash value accumulated over time covers future premiums. This can create a stable, long-term funding mechanism for a special needs trust, ensuring the child’s financial security after the parents’ deaths. Bryan also mentioned that life insurance can be an effective estate planning tool for grandparents or other relatives who wish to contribute to a special needs trust, leveraging premiums to maximize their gift.

Bryan shared his personal experience, having purchased a second-to-die policy early in his planning journey to address the long-term needs of his children. While he expressed mixed feelings about the decision, acknowledging that he would likely eventually be able to self-fund the risk, he doesn’t regret the peace of mind it provided at a time when he felt financially uncertain. His situation highlights the balance parents must strike between current financial capabilities and future uncertainties.

The discussion underscores the importance of evaluating life insurance within the broader context of financial and estate planning for special needs families. While permanent life insurance isn’t for everyone, it can play a strategic role for families navigating the complexities of multigenerational financial security. Families must carefully assess their resources, long-term goals, and risk tolerance to determine whether such a policy fits their unique circumstances. Again, using the assistance of a trustworthy professional is probably a good idea for most families in these types of circumstances.

 

If you want to learn more from Dr. Jepson and Dr. Dahle's conversation, see the WCI podcast transcript below.

 

Milestones to Millionaire

#199 — Nurse Practitioner Becomes a Millionaire by Doing Locums

Today, we are celebrating a nurse practitioner who has become a millionaire. A few years into her career, she was feeling bored and wanted a change. So, she started doing traveling locums. She loves working with different populations, the travel, and the higher pay. She said she makes nearly double what she would at a permanent position. She has a love for travel and can take three months off each year to spend time with family and see the world. If you have ever considered traveling locums, this episode is for you!

 

Finance 101: Trading

Trading investments often seems appealing, with promises of quick profits and strategies that claim to outsmart the market. However, it's crucial to approach such claims with skepticism. Most trading methods—whether day trading, swing trading, or technical analysis—rely heavily on speculation and guesswork rather than sound financial principles. While some people genuinely enjoy the activity and believe they're making money, the reality is that many traders fail to outperform simpler, passive investment strategies over the long term. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other financial authorities often warn against these practices, as they frequently lead to significant losses for individual investors.

One of the biggest challenges with trading is that it often does not account for the full picture of costs and risks. Taxes, trading fees, and the sheer amount of time spent analyzing and executing trades can eat into any potential profits. Many traders also fail to consider the risk-adjusted returns, meaning the actual value gained after accounting for the uncertainty and stress involved. In many cases, people would be better off focusing their time and energy on more meaningful pursuits or investing in a diversified portfolio of low-cost index funds, which historically provides steady, reliable returns with far less effort.

Finally, trading is not the same as investing. True investing is about owning shares of businesses with the expectation of long-term growth and profits. Trading, on the other hand, often resembles gambling, with individuals speculating on short-term price movements. While there are always people selling “trading secrets” or promising extraordinary returns, it's important to recognize the unrealistic nature of these claims. If someone truly had a system to consistently beat the market, they would be managing billions of dollars, not selling courses or systems. Instead, focus on building wealth by contributing value to the world, saving diligently, and investing in a sustainable and thoughtful manner.

 

To learn more about trading, read the Milestones to Millionaire transcript below.


Sponsor: CompHealth

 

Today’s episode is brought to you by SoFi, helping medical professionals like us bank, borrow, and invest to achieve financial wellness. SoFi offers up to 4.6% APY on its savings accounts, as well as an investment platform, financial planning, and student loan refinancing featuring an exclusive rate discount for med professionals and $100 a month payments for residents. Check out all that SoFi offers at www.whitecoatinvestor.com/Sofi. Loans originated by SoFi Bank, N.A., NMLS 696891. Advisory services by SoFi Wealth LLC. The brokerage product is offered by SoFi Securities LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investing comes with risk including risk of loss. Additional terms and conditions may apply.

 

WCI Podcast Transcript

Transcription – WCI – 396

INTRODUCTION

This is the White Coat Investor podcast where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high-income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is White Coat Investor podcast number 396 – Financial planning for special needs kids with Dr. Bryan Jepson.

This episode is brought to you by SoFi, helping medical professionals like us bank, borrow and invest to achieve financial wellness. SoFi offers up to 4.6% APY on their savings accounts, as well as an investment platform, financial planning and student loan refinancing, featuring an exclusive rate discount for med professionals and $100 a month payments for residents. Check out all that SoFi offers at whitecoatinvestor.com/sofi.

Loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A. NMLS 696891. Advisory services by SoFi Wealth LLC. The brokerage product is offered by SoFi Securities LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Investing comes with risk, including risk of loss. Additional terms and conditions may apply.

Welcome back to the podcast. Hope you're well this winter season. We're into December already. I hope you're taking care of any end of year financial planning items you might have maxing out retirement accounts. I hope you've opened up all the accounts you need to. If not, it's going to be a big rush before the end of the year. If you need to do that, don't forget lots of things actually allow you to do them after the first of the year these days.

While it's most convenient to take care of your backdoor Roth during the calendar year, you don't actually have to do that. You can do it into the next year and still get that contribution in place. But let's get things taken care of and keep our financial ducks in a row so we can concentrate on what really matters in life, which is our families, our own wellness, our patients that we're taking care of, and those who depend on us.

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Our quote of the day today comes from Tony Robbins, who said “Success is doing what you want when you want, where you want, with whom you want, as much as you want.” There's a lot of truth to that.

We have some bulk book discounts available here at the White Coat Investor. Thank you so much for discussing money and encouraging financial literacy. Some of you I know buy books in bulk and pass them out to trainees or your residents or colleagues or for a special meeting or whatever. We do offer a discount. If you're buying 25 or more copies of any of our books, we will give you a discount on them. Just contact us emailing at [email protected]. We'll give you an even bigger discount if you're ordering more. If you're ordering 100 plus or something, we'll give you a bigger discount.

 

INTERVIEW WITH BRYAN JEPSON

We have a really great discussion today. I've got Bryan Jepson coming on here. I learned after we finished the interview that I have a lot more connections with him than I realized I did when we lined up this interview. I'll mention those after we finish the interview.

For those of you out there with family or friends or yourselves who have special needs kids in your family, this is some really important information. Let's learn about a fairly complicated area of financial planning today, financial planning for a family with a special needs kid in it.

All right, our guest today on the podcast is Dr. Bryan Jepson. Bryan Jepson, MD, also has a master's in finance. He's a chartered special needs consultant. He's a CFP candidate. He works at Targeted Wealth Solutions as an advisor and has also been a practicing doc. So welcome to the podcast, Bryan.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. It's fun to be on.

 

HOW UPBRINGING INFLUENCED VIEWS ON MONEY

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Let's introduce you a little bit. I'm going to set a few things about you, but let's talk a little bit about you before we get too far in this conversation. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing and how it kind of shaped your views about money.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, it's a good question. I grew up in Utah, actually, five boys in our family, middle class neighborhood, actually, probably lower middle class, if I'm being honest about it. But my parents did not have college degrees. My dad was an entrepreneur at heart, but never really was very lucky in his business ventures. And so, money was always a bit of a stress for us, especially as I was growing up. I was one of the older of the five of us.

And so, we basically had our basic needs met, but anything extra, we had to find a way to pay for it ourselves. And we did a lot of that starting from the beginning, mowing lawns, paper route, working at McDonald's. I worked as a phlebotomist in college. There was palpable money stress, I think, in our house. My parents did their best to shield us from it, and I think for the most part they did. But I was old enough and aware enough that I knew that they were stressed out about finances pretty much all the time.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
You got out of the house at that point. Where'd you go then for your education and mentoring?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
I went up to the University of Utah. My parents were always very supportive in terms of education and just helping us to really achieve our goals and helped us get scholarships and grants. So I was able to get through undergraduate without any debt. And then I ended up going to medical school at University of Utah as well, which is a state school for us. That helped a lot financially as well. My debt certainly wasn't as big as it could have been coming out.

And so, yeah, that's kind of how I grew up. I think I've always had a saver mentality based on my parents' frugality, but also sometimes it's kind of a scarcity mentality. And I can see that myself. And that's part of who I am. I'm trying to overcome that a little bit.

 

CAREER EVOLUTION FROM MEDICINE TO FINANCE

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Now, you've had an interesting career since you finished your training. Tell us about some of the evolutions your career's had. I've met a number of docs that have become advisors at some point in their career. But tell us how that career path went for you.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah. Yeah. My career is definitely not typical. After medical school, I went to residency in emergency medicine in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Pretty much came out of that with the standard future ahead of me in emergency medicine. I got a job in Colorado and it was a good job. And everything was going along. At that point, like a lot of your listeners, that's when I became really interested in personal finance. This is way back when. I'm a little long in the tooth so this is back in the 90s, the 1900s.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Last century.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Last century. As I started practice, I was very interested in personal finance, was just reading everything I could. There wasn't a White Coat Investor blog at that point.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Sorry about that. I didn't know enough as an undergraduate to start it.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah. But anyway, there were some websites and I read a lot of books and just got interested in investing in real estate and all this kind of stuff that a lot of your listeners are interested in as well. But then my life took a hard right turn about two and a half years after I got out of residency. So I hadn't been going for very long. We'd actually decided at that point to move back to Utah because that's where all of our extended family was. And I moved back to Utah. You will know Jordan Valley Hospital, I worked there.

But about two and a half years in, like I said, that's when my second son was diagnosed with autism. And at that point everything changes. For parents, when you have that come into your life your focus immediately goes to different directions. And that's definitely what happened to me. And as my wife and I tried to figure out what we were doing and what autism was and how to help our son, we did everything that we could to figure out what resources are there, which were a lot less back then than there are now.

And part of that for me is that I started looking into the biological side of autism and seeing what research shows and what I could understand about that, which led me to eventually, I opened up a clinic in Utah, just a nonprofit clinic. It kind of led me towards some integrative and functional medicine practice. So, I did that while I continued to work in the ER full-time.

Ultimately, that led me to moving to Texas to be part of a bigger multidisciplinary clinic that I helped to found. I actually left emergency medicine at that point and did functional medicine for autism for about five years, full-time. And that was in Texas. But while we were there, we decided to adopt another child who also was severely impacted by autism, which was a decision of the heart, but was also really difficult as we had now two kids with significant special needs, and also our oldest son who we were trying to make life not completely about autism for him and let him have his own life.

But at that point, I was basically 24-7 autism. So, I was working in an autism clinic. I was lecturing all over the place, talking about just autism treatment and then home with autism. And so, it was pretty stressful for our family.

I went back to the ER to decrease stress. And also because of just for our own financial futures. That kind of medical practice certainly isn't highly reimbursed and definitely not compared to emergency medicine. And now that I had two kids that were going to likely have lifetime support, I decided I just need to go back to ER and focus on our family and our own financial future. So, that's what I did which was not an easy thing after five years out, but made it back in and been doing it ever since. We ended up moving back to Colorado and ironically back to the same job that I came out of residency to initially.

But for me about, I don't know, four or five years ago, I could see the writing on the wall for me in terms of, call it what you will, burnout or just feeling stagnant in the career or just tired of nights and weekends and holidays. There's lots of reasons, I think, that docs kind of start looking around a little bit, but I started doing that and said, “Okay, well, I was in decent place financially, but I'm not ready to mentally hang it up and just retire.”

So, I kind of looked back and said, “If I were not a doctor, what would I have enjoyed doing?” And really finance was something that just really interested me. And so, at that point, I decided that I wanted to dive in deeper on the academic side of it, went and got a master's in finance and risk management. And part of that is just so that I could really learn the nuts and bolts, but part of it, too, is I figured that that would help for me to find any kind of employment in that field, since I'm coming from a completely different background.

So, I did that. And then finance is very broad and trying to figure out, “Okay, well, what am I going to do within finance?” I really migrated toward financial planning, started this certified financial planning process and met Targeted Wealth, which I can thank you for, because they were listed on your blog as one of your vetted companies.

And so, I reached out to them and I really thought that they met all the criteria that certainly I was looking for in a place to work and a lot of the criteria that you have listed as a good company to look for, for a financial advisor including fee only and low cost. We're definitely on the lowest end of your range of appropriate fees and philosophy of low cost investing. All this stuff that I thought was important, I found in them. And so, one thing led to another and they hired me and here we are.

 

CHARTERED SPECIAL NEEDS CONSULTANT

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. Now, you've got a designation that not very many financial planners have, this Chartered Special Needs Consultant. Tell us about that, what that covers, what that took to get that? Is this one eight hour class or what does it take to get this designation?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, it's more than that. It's almost like a semester of school. There's three different classes that each take six weeks or so, I think, to get through them. And you have to go through those three and then take a test at the end. I pushed through it pretty quickly. A lot of it I felt very comfortable with because a lot of it is teaching about how to communicate with disabled people and I know all that stuff.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, having run an autism clinic for years and aside from your work in the ER, and having a couple of kids with special needs, I can't think of anybody that might be more qualified at this point to talk to people about special needs.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, I flew through that part of it pretty quick, but the rest was just really diving in on all the nuances of the financing and of special needs families.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, we're going to talk quite a bit about finances, especially in these families. Before we get to that, though, as a physician turned financial planner, what surprised you the most about working with docs as clients?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Good question. To be honest, it's the docs that are not my clients that surprised me the most. Meaning I'm constantly surprised at how many doctors don't pay attention to their finances. They just don't pay attention or they act on bad advice without due diligence. It takes you a lot of effort to get to where you are, and where you are is a great opportunity to become financially independent. As a high income professional, you should be on the path to financial independence. And so, why doctors don't pay attention to that, that's what surprises me more than anything.

I like how you designate different pathways, I guess, the doctors can take, whether it's a delegator or a validator or a DIYer. And I'm fine with any of those, but just choose one of them, do something, do something. I get the DIY thing. I'm a DIY to the nth degree, to the point that I became a financial planner. I've never actually used a financial planner myself. I got a master's degree instead. So, I get the DIY. But if you're going to be a DIY guy, be a good one. Actually do the research, take the time, put the effort in so that you know what you're doing. And if not, then get some help, but do something.

 

HOW TO TELL IF YOU ARE A DELEGATOR, A VALIDATOR, OR A DIYER

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. So, what do you think is the easiest way for somebody in the beginning to tell if they're a delegator, a validator, or a DIYer?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
I would say, if you have an hour of exit time, how do you spend it? If you're a DIYer in finance, you're probably reading the White Coat blog, or you're looking at your stocks or you're trying to learn stuff and it gets you out of bed in the morning. It's something that you're interested in doing and you love learning about it. That's a good DIYer.

For me, a validator is you like to learn some stuff, but you don't take the time to fill in all the holes that are out there. And then the delegator is you know it is important, but you just have no interest in doing it and you'd rather pay somebody else to do it. That's the last thing that you want to do with that hour of time is read anything about finance.

It's almost like car guys. I just think about it as if you want to change your oil. There's some guys that really love to get their hands dirty. And they're going to go out there and try and fix their car and do the oil changes. And then the validators are like “I know that I could save money, I probably should do this. And I can watch a YouTube video and hope to do it right.” For oil changes, I'm a delegator. It's not worth it to me. So I'm happy to pay for somebody else to do it. And so, that's how I would use that as a metaphor, probably.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
That's the beautiful thing about being a DIYer or when it comes to being your own financial planner and asset manager. There is no better paying hobby out there than managing your own finance, just because the cost of even reasonably priced advice is not insignificant, especially when you start applying compound interest to it for many years.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, yeah. And again, as long as you do it well, because there's also a big cost of screwing up.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Absolutely agree with you. If you're not going to do it well, get some help. You don't have to screw up too badly to blow through $10,000 a year when you have a significant portfolio, especially.

 

QUALIFYING FOR GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS LIKE MEDICAID AND SOCIAL SECURITY

All right, our subject today is planning for special needs kids. Now, I think we all understand how you got interested in this between your practice and between your own kids. I don't think that's too much of a mystery there. But let's talk about some of the more specific aspects of it. And I've thought of what I can think of with this, but feel free to throw in additional information that maybe I haven't thought of when it comes to these sorts of planning.

But let's talk a little bit first about Medicaid, Medicaid planning for a disabled kid in a high income family. Somebody that's a White Coat Investor listening to this has a disabled kid in their family. How can they qualify or help their child to qualify for Medicaid, government programs, etc?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, I think the first thing to address is, why should you try to qualify? You're high income. Do you need to go Medicaid? I think a lot of us have the presumption that Medicaid is for poor people. For the special needs family, I think those families need to kind of get over that. And look at Medicaid, not as a welfare program, but as an entitlement program, because it actually is. You pay into the Medicaid system, through taxes, Social Security tax, FICA tax. You're paying into that as an insurance plan, in case you get disabled, or someone in your family gets disabled.

And so, I look at it more, it's almost like insurance. If you're paying the premiums, why would you not take the payout if you need it? And for special needs, in particular, Medicaid is really a lifeline for them to have needs met that become incredibly expensive over a lifetime. Primarily things like housing, vocational assistance, health insurance, extended long term care.

Lots of times, if we're thinking about long term care for the normal family, most people don't stay in long term care for more than a year or two at the end of their life, because they just don't live that long, once they get to that point. But special needs families, or special needs individuals, that could be their entire life that they're needing extra support. And if you're paying that out of pocket, you better have a lot of money, because it's  going to eat into that really quickly.

The other reason is that some services that Medicaid offers are not even accessible if you don't have Medicaid. You can't even access it through private pay. And so, it really is important for special needs families to maintain that eligibility. And it's a challenge to do that. But let's face it. Raising kids, raising a disabled child is expensive, and not just in the things that you have to pay for. There's a lot of opportunity costs, also. In my house, my wife could never work outside of our home, because she has been taking care of our boys throughout their lives. And they're in their mid-20s now, and will continue to need our full support. And for me, it's not like I could be gone working 18-20 shifts a month or whatever and just leave it all up to my wife. I've cut down shifts that I probably wouldn't have if I didn't have this situation.

I would add to that, that lots of times, especially when your kids are young, that's money that you could be investing that's going to help your long term future that you're paying for services for your kids. There's lots of opportunity costs. And there aren't very many special needs families who are so wealthy that they can totally support without any assistance. There are some.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Is it hard to qualify for Medicaid when you walk in there to qualify for Medicaid? They're like, “What do you make?” And you're like $375,000. They raise their eyebrows and go, “Well, you're not going to qualify.” How does that work exactly?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
It's not hard, because… Well, I should say this. It can be hard to qualify for SSI. And that's really what the government benefit is. It's social security income. And when you qualify for that, Medicaid is an add on. So, you're not qualifying for Medicaid, necessarily, you're qualifying for SSI. You have to demonstrate disability.

Sometimes it can be difficult if it's not clear what your needs are. There are strategies to be able to be sure that you can qualify for that. One way to think about that is, you have to explain to the people that are qualifying you all the things that your kids can't do like normal people can do. And as parents, that's kind of hard, because we're always trying to encourage them and help them to do everything that they can do. But you have to have a change of mindset when you're trying to get them eligible for Social Security and show them without assistance, without support, they cannot do this.

And that's really what SSI is based on, is based on what a typical person can do. And if they can't do that without help, then they should qualify. So that's part of it. It's getting them qualified for that.

In terms of the income side of it, you qualify your kids for SSI when they become 18. That's the earliest that you can do it. And at that point, they're considered adults. And so, it's all about their assets, not your assets. As parents, your assets don't come into play at all.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
It's not like going to college that way.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
No.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
If you go to college, the FAFSA wants you to put all your assets on there. There's no equivalent of the FAFSA for a disabled kid turning 18.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Right. Yeah. It's all about their assets. But that's why it's important, which we'll talk about coming up here, to protect money that you set aside away from them as individuals, because that will disqualify them. The limit that they can have is $2,000 in assets. And their income has to be less than I think it's $1,900 or $1,970, or something like that per month.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But what about before 18? What do they qualify for before 18? Anything or nothing at all?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Before 18, it is based on the parents' income. If you as a parent have a very low income and very low assets, then your kids can qualify. Obviously, very few of our listeners would qualify for that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
They qualify for what? SSI or Medicaid or what?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Both.

Dr. Jim Dahle:

Both. Okay, based on your assets.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah. Up until 18 is the parents' assets. After 18 it's the child's assets. Now there are exceptions. There are some conditions that have really high medical need, you can qualify for Medicaid in spite of parents' assets. So, there are exceptions. But for the most part, that's the delineation is the age of the kid is 18. 18 is actually a really important pressure point, if you want to say it that way, for special needs planning.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
What other government assistance is out there? Either from states or federal government, besides SSI and Medicaid?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Well, some of the other entitlements would include vocational rehab. That's something that if you qualify for SSI, they can still help you find a job and get job training. And some of that includes money for education. As a SSI disabled qualifier, you can actually get your college paid for because the hope is that they will be able to come off of Medicaid at some point, if they're able to support themselves.

And so, there's a lot of job training, things like that, if you have SSDI, so that's based more on if your parents have retired, or are deceased, or are themselves disabled, then the child qualifies for SSDI, which is Social Security Disability Insurance. That does not have an asset limit. And then you become qualified for Medicare in that situation. So, there's that. And plus a lot of the states have waivers which are Medicaid based waivers, which can help pay for all kinds of things like day programs for adults, or a respite care or a personal assistant to help them go do stuff or whatever.

There are a lot of other benefits that some of them are paid for by the state, and are not entitlements. So it all depends on the state you live in, and how much money that state is putting into that program. And some of them are federally mandated entitlements.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
What about charitable or nonprofit organizations that can help in these sorts of situations? Are there any that you think of as go to organizations that every parent ought to know about?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Well honestly, it's kind of disability dependent because each disability has their own advocacy organizations. For autism, there's one called the Autism Resource Center, which is ARC, for short. There's the Autism Society of America. There's a bunch like that, that are really strong advocacy groups. And every disability that has a name to it will have something similar to that. And it's a really good resource for people to do that. Because generally, they're parent driven organizations, or just people that are very focused on that, and they can really guide you towards the resources that you need.

Because as a parent, especially as a new parent, it's overwhelming, emotionally overwhelming, just trying to figure it all out, knowing what to do. You're in a totally different world than you ever thought you'd be. And so, I definitely encourage people to reach out to find the applicable organization, because they can help you also with finding the resources that are out there.

 

TOOLS TO HELP PROVIDE FINANCIALLY FOR YOUR SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD

ABLE ACCOUNTS

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, this $2,000 limit. Age 18 and $2,000 and $1,900 or whatever it is in income, and I think there's probably a little variation by state there. This becomes very important when it comes to planning for this now adult child's future. So, there's a lot of tools that can be used. Can you tell us a little bit about the best way to use each of these as you try to stay under those limits of assets so they can still qualify for SSI and Medicaid? Let's start with a relatively newfangled tax-protected account, the ABLE account. How should those be used?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, you're right. In order to save for your kid's future, you have to be able to earmark assets for them and it can't be under their name. The main ones are the ABLE account and special needs trusts, and there's some nuances and there's some differences and pros and cons of each. The ABLE account is basically started from a law, it's called…

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I think it's the ABLE Act.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
ABLE stands for Achieve a Better Life Experience. Achieve a Better Life Experience Act, and that was passed in 2014. It took a couple of years for states to get the funds going, but over time, most states have added it. I think there's still a couple that don't have ABLE accounts as part of their state. It's usually administered by the same program in the state that 529s are administered in.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Which is cool, because presumably that means they're now competing with each other the way 529s have, to have better accounts.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, exactly. And that brings up a good point because you don't have to use your state's ABLE account. You can look around and find the ones that are the best, but unlike 529s, you can't have more than one per individual. For 529s, you can have as many 529s for that beneficiary as you want, and as many people can contribute to it as you want, as long as each individual contributes less than the gift tax limit, that's fine.

But with ABLE accounts, you can only have one per beneficiary. There is a limit about how much you can contribute to that account, regardless of who's contributing. The current this year is $18,000, it's the gift tax limit. But you can't have grandparent contribute $18,000 and you contribute $18,000 or whatever. It's $18,000 total, which is different than 529s.

Now the individual can also contribute some if they have a salary. So, if they are working, they can contribute to the ABLE account up to the poverty limit, which I think this year is something a little over $15,000. So they can contribute as well.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
They can contribute $15,000 or they can contribute some money up until they're making more than $15,000?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
They can contribute up to the poverty limit. So they can contribute up to $15,000 per year, in addition to the $18,000 that someone else contributes. The good thing about that is that that money does not count as an asset to the individual in terms of their government eligibility. And so, it gives them an opportunity to spend money on pretty much anything. As long as it's for the beneficiary, it's a very broad definition of stuff that you can spend it on.

It's basically kind of like your 529 where you can have a debit card, you can write a check. It gives them a lot of independence. It's easier, you don't have to have a trustee, doesn't cost any money other than maybe just a minimal setup fee in some states. There's a lot of advantages to it, but there's also some qualifiers. If you have more than $100,000 in that account, it does start counting as an asset until you spend it down below that. And you can't put more than the total, like a 529 limit, which is usually $400,000 to $500,000. That's the most that you can ever contribute to an ABLE.

That may not be enough to last your lifetime so you may need a special needs trust to build up a larger asset base, but it's a good mechanism, I think, to just help with the day-to-day spending.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, there's a weird rule with ABLE accounts that doesn't apply to very many other tax protected accounts. And I don't think this has been changed. I think this is still in place, but you really want to spend the whole thing during your life, because if there's anything left, the government can claw back to reimburse Medicaid, if you die and still have money in the account?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yes. That's one of the downsides for sure is the Medicaid payback provision. Now, some special needs trusts have that as well, a first party special needs trust, which we can talk about in a minute, that also has Medicaid payback provision. Some of the states are doing away with that, with the Medicaid payback for ABLE accounts, and some of them have it, but they don't enforce it.

And so, the problem is that if you live in a state that has a Medicaid payback provision and your ABLE account is in a state that doesn't, you still have to pay it back, because it's based on the state where you live, the Medicaid payback provision is. And so, yeah, ideally you spend that down. You spend that down before they die because after they die, that money first pays back what they've been charged in Medicaid from the time that the ABLE account was started. It's definitely one of the downsides.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, you might be allowed to get whatever your state's 529 total limit is $400,000, $500,000 in there. But my understanding is a lot of states start counting it as the beneficiary's assets once it gets to $100,000 or so.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
That's right. Yeah, over $100,000, that's it. It's an asset at that point. And so, you would lose your SSI. Lots of times you can lose your SSI, but not lose your Medicaid. So you may still have Medicaid option for a while. But ultimately, if you need that SSI income, then you need to spend below $100,000. And that being said, SSI income, there's not that much. But yeah, you would have to spend it down.

Just one other thought on ABLE before we move past that. If you have a 529 account, like you have a child that you've been saving in a 529 for and they become disabled, or you determined that they're not going to be eligible, or they're not going to be able to go to college because of a disability, you can actually roll over 529 money to an ABLE account. But it's limited. You can only roll it over $15,000 per year, or whatever the maximum contribution. But if you plan ahead and you kind of know that they're more likely to need an ABLE account than a 529, then you can start rolling that over before they're 18. Because 529s count as an asset for disabled kids.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Didn't Secure Act 2.0 change one of the ABLE account rules too? Something about you used to not be able to contribute if they weren't disabled before age 26 or something. Didn't something change there recently?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, good point. An ABLE account, you needed to be disabled before age 26. So starting in 2026, they've changed that to age 46. People that are disabled as adults can still contribute now. Yeah, that's a good provision.

 

SPECIAL NEEDS TRUSTS

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, I think we've beaten the ABLE accounts as much as we can. Let's talk about the special needs trusts, different types, when you might want to use those instead of an ABLE or in addition to an ABLE.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah. Basically there's a couple of main types. One is a first party trust and one is a third party trust. And the difference is where is that money coming from? Whose money is it? If it's the disabled person's money, then it needs to go into a first party trust. For example, if there was a legal settlement and they got a big payout from that, but it came to the individual in the individual's name, it's that person's money, but that would immediately be an asset and really disqualify them from government benefit. And so, you can create a first party trust for that money to go in that would protect that money.

The downside of a first party trust is that there's a Medicaid payback provision. If it's not spent down, all that extra is paid back to the state for the Medicaid services that they have used. If there's anything left after that, you can give it to a secondary beneficiary.

First party trusts are a little bit more expensive to set up. They usually require a corporate trustee. And sometimes it's actually the court that mandates it. And so, it's more of a legal process. If you don't have that much money to really actually kind of make it worth it, there's something called a pooled trust, where it's basically run by a nonprofit organization that a bunch of people pool their money together. They have a joint trustee. It's an individually marked account, but they pay like they would out of a regular special needs trust.

But when that person dies, often that money goes into the pool to help other disabled people rather than Medicaid. Even though Medicaid can access some of it, especially if there's anything left over. So, those are first party trusts.

Third party trusts are what most people have, and what most people think about from a special needs planning perspective. And that's money that's not the beneficiary's money. It's money that parents put in or grandparents put in or whoever puts in to the trust on the behalf of the disabled person. Basically the benefit of that is that you have a trustee, you have to designate that person who can help. Well, it's their job actually to ensure that that money is going to the beneficiary in a way that makes sense. It's a supplementary trust. That's important is that it has to be a supplement to the government provisions. And the wording on that is actually quite important.

But the trustee is in charge of paying that out on behalf of the beneficiary. The good thing with third party trust is that there's no payback provision and that there's no maximum amount that you can put in. You can have as many people put money in there as much as they want to. And after that individual dies, you can have secondary beneficiaries that get the extra money. A lot of people do this for their family where they put the amount that they need for their special needs child and then list their other children or grandchildren as a secondary beneficiary. And so, it flows through to them. I think that's really the biggest benefit.

And to ask, to figure out, “Okay, should I do an ABLE or should I do a special needs trust?” One of the other downsides, I guess, of a special needs trust is that there are certain things that you can't pay for without losing some of your eligibility or at least some of your SSI income. If you pay for housing out of the special needs trust, that comes out of your SSI check. So, you don't get as much SSI for supplementing their housing. You can do that through an ABLE account though. What some people do is they pay the ABLE account from the special needs trust and then the ABLE account pays the housing. There's ways that you can use them together.

The other thing is they're a little bit more cumbersome to administer. You have to have a trustee, you have to file tax returns. There's taxes owed on income in the trust. For that reason, some people don't fund it until their death. The parents, it's a testamentary trust. So it's not funded until they die and then they don't have to administer it throughout their life. But there's pros and cons of each. You can do it either way.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
What are typical amounts that a doctor family might put into a trust or an ABLE account in your experience? Do you put $100,000 into an ABLE account and a few hundred thousand dollars into a trust and call it good? Or are people leaving millions behind in these trusts?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
That's where the financial planning part of it comes in because part of that is how much faith you have that those government benefits will be around for your kid's lifetime. And some families feel pretty strongly that they feel pretty safe about it and some don't. And so, to figure out how much to put in, you really have to figure out about what their expenses are and what kind of life and supplement that you want for your disabled child. And that's going to be family dependent. But in general, for some people, yeah, it's a couple hundred thousand. For some people it's millions. It's a couple million.

And so, part of what I try and do is put the pieces together. From a financial planning perspective, the most important thing is to be sure that the parent's plan is in good shape. It's kind of like the oxygen in the airplane idea. If you're not taking care of yourself, you're not going to have much left for anybody. And so, we try and be sure that we do a comprehensive plan for the parents first, and then we start looking at what their needs are. There's a wide range of needs and expenses. So you really have to figure out what you want their life to look like, and then figure out how much you expect that to cost, and then project that forward. Part of that is investment returns, and just figuring all that stuff out.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Do they tend to fund that at death or well before death? What's kind of typical there?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
I've read different things from different sources where some people feel strongly just fund it at death, and some people feel strongly that they'd rather fund it as a living trust. I think the benefit of doing it as a living trust is that you can practice with it a little bit. You can be sure that the trustee has a sense of how to do it, and you can start funding stuff while you're alive with them. Whether it's take them on a vacation or stuff like that, you can pay that out of the trust. Really anything that helps your disabled child, you can use the trust to pay for it. And so, there's lots of things that families would want to do and use the trust for that. I think every family is a little bit different on that.

 

IS PERMANENT LIFE INSURANCE A GOOD IDEA IF YOU HAVE A SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD?

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Now you've been around this long enough, both in the financial space as well as in the medicine space that you've seen how whole life insurance salesmen are looking for any opportunity possible to sell a whole life insurance policy. One of which is, “Hey, if you've got a special needs kid that's a great reason to buy a whole life policy.” What do you see as the role of a permanent life insurance policy in a family with a special needs child, if any?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Well, it's a good question. And let me start by saying I have no skin in the game. I don't sell insurance. And I agree with you for the most part, and just in terms of your philosophy with regard to life insurance, and term is the way to go for the vast majority of people. But if you think about why you buy insurance, we buy insurance because you're transferring risk. That's basically what insurance is, is a risk transfer. For life insurance, the risk that you're transferring is the risk of dying too soon before you have money to finance your family. Most doctors, we suggest that they buy term insurance because by the time their term is done, hopefully, they're going to be financially independent enough that they can self-fund that risk. And so, it's no longer needed.

But for special needs families, you have to remember that you're planning for two generations. And so, that risk extends beyond the typical doctor family. And if you get to the point where you are planning and you don't have the resources that you feel like you can fund that risk, I think that's when insurance is reasonable or not just reasonable, a good idea.

Maybe one of the benefits of having a whole life policy is that your risk is just extending. And if you end up at an older age and realize that you still don't have enough money to fund your kid, and then you're into a pretty big term premium as an older age. But for me, I can see some value in it, but I would probably do a second-to-die policy because it's cheaper. The premiums are less. And if you do like a universal policy, you may be able to pay in for 10 years and then just have the cash value pay the premiums. Then you have a long-term plan to fund your special needs trust that will die with you.

And so, I think that it's not completely unreasonable and it's not unreasonable as an estate planning tool, also. If you have a grandparent or somebody that wants to fund a special needs trust through an insurance policy, they pay the premiums and can leverage their gift. So, I don't think it's crazy.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Have you bought a whole life or other permanent policy to help fund your children after you're gone?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
I actually did buy a second-to-die policy, but that was before I was a financial planner. I was working on just trying to get our estate set up to help with setting up special needs trust and all this kind of stuff. They talked to me about a second-to-die policy. And at that point, I felt like I wanted to kind of be able to transfer that risk. So we bought a second-to-die policy, which I'll probably be able to stop funding after a total of 10 years.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But you're still happy you got it.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
I'm not unhappy. It's one of those.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I'm hearing a little bit of mixed feelings.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
I have mixed feelings because it's one of those things that ultimately if I live long enough, I'll be able to self-fund it. The reason to do it would be at that point, I didn't feel like I was there. And so, the gamble that would have been, “Okay, well, another term policy for however long it would take.” And that's a very reasonable thing too. But it is what it is. I'll probably hang on to it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
What else should parents of special needs kids know that we haven't yet talked about?

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF TIMING WITH PLANNING FOR SPECIAL NEEDS PEOPLE

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
There's a timeframe for everything in special needs planning. And it really fits in their pressure points along their life. When you're first diagnosed, what you're focused on as a parent is different than when they're 18. And when they're after age 22, it's different than when they're 18, because that's when they age out of educational assistance programs through public education. And as you're an older parent, you've got to start thinking about, “Okay, well, what's going to happen to them? Where are they going to live if we're not around anymore?”

There's a lot of things that special needs families have to think about. What most families, it's plan for your own retirement, help your kids get through college and then whatever you have leftover is great. It's a little bit different because again, you are planning for another generation. And so, there's nuances. There's just a lot of landmines. That's the biggest thing. It's so easy to lose benefits.

I'll tell you, I can speak from personal experience. Social Security is watching. They are keeping track of your assets. I had a couple of months where my son had $2,004 in his account and they came back and he lost his benefit for that month. And so, it's just stuff like that on top of just trying to get through the day to day of being a parent of someone with those kinds of needs. There's a lot to keep track of. And so, I would just encourage everybody to get the help that they need to at least learn the process and get on a good path for that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, it's complicated financial planning, isn't it?

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
It is, it's different, it's different. It adds a whole different element because you have to do all the other stuff too. You have to do all the other stuff too to be sure that you're in good shape. And most times you have other kids to take care of too. There's a lot to it for sure.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Well, it has been wonderful to learn more about how to take care of special needs kids, how to do financial planning for a family with special needs kids. We've been talking with Dr. Jepson, who is not only a practicing emergency physician who has taken care of autism kids in an autism specific clinic, but also for this discussion, a chartered special needs consultant and available at Targeted Wealth Solutions, one of our long-term advertisers that we've had here at the White Coat Investor. Thank you so much for your time today, Bryan.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Yeah, you bet. Can I just add one other thing?

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
In terms of just to help with special needs families, one thing that I like what you say to doctors is often that you introduce your blog or your podcast as thank you for what you do because we don't hear that enough. I think special needs families need that too. And it's tough, it's a tough life. There's a lot of challenges and there's a lot of things that you have to do and it's isolating, but to those families, first of all, thank you for what you do. Second, enjoy the journey, try, because these are special kids.

I have obviously a personal soft spot for them, but they will change your life in a good way. And if you're a doctor that are helping with them, just take a few more minutes with these families, just take a little bit more time, smile, help them just understand that they may be having a really bad day. Anything that you can do can make a huge difference in their life. And so, I'll just add that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, well said. It's challenging to be a caregiver for a year of your life. When we're talking about doing it for multiple decades, it's a whole other level of commitment and challenge and difficulty. Thank you to those of you out there taking care of the special needs people, whoever they may be. Whether they're kids or whether they're now elderly. We all need a little bit of help in this life. Some of us might need a little more help than others. And thank you for those of you out there giving it.

Dr. Bryan Jepson:
Okay, perfect.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, I hope you enjoyed that. I discovered during and after the interview that Bryan used to work in my group. So, he knows half of my partners. All the partners in my group that are older than me he knows. And so, a fun connection that we've had to be able to know a lot of the same people and work in the same place actually for a fair number of years.

Thank you, Bryan, for what you're doing out there, not only in emergency medicine and with your financial planning practice, but for your own family. You've done a great service for a lot of people out there that need help with this complicated area of financial planning.

 

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All right, we'll see you next week. Until then, keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this, we're here to help you. Join the White Coat Investor community, help everybody else to become successful along the way. My financial planning might be a single player game, but that doesn't mean you can't get a little help from your friends every now and then. See you next week.

 

DISCLAIMER

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

 

Milestones to Millionaire Transcript

Transcription – MtoM – 199

INTRODUCTION

This is the White Coat Investor podcast Milestones to Millionaire – Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 199 – Nurse practitioner becomes a millionaire by doing locums.

One of the most underrated financial moves in medicine is working locum tenants. It pays significantly more on average and you can work locums full-time or on the side of your full-time. And when you work with Comp Health, the number one staffing agency, they cover your housing and travel costs, which on top of higher pay really adds up.

Locums also gives you more control of your career, allowing you to go where you want, when you want, with a schedule that works for you. It's the perfect way to get ahead financially while getting focused on what you love. Whether it's locum tenants or a regular permanent position, build your career your way with the power of Comp Health. Learn more at comphealth.com.

All right, by the time this drops, I think it's the last day of our Black Friday sale. So, if you have not heard this yet, Black Friday sale is ending today. What can you get on Black Friday? Well, you can get all kinds of things. But at WCI, you can get anything that comes out of our store, shop.whitecoatinvestor.com. You can get anything there, t-shirts, swag, mugs, whatever.

But you can also get all of our online courses. That includes our No Hype Real Estate Investing course. It's 20% off, that'll save you hundreds of dollars. If you don't have a written financial plan in place yet, that includes our Fire Your Financial Advisor course. There's a student version, an attending version, a resident version. There's even a version that comes with CME. They're all 20% off through today, December 2nd.

Also, if you're interested in Continuing Financial Education, we have our CFE 2024 course, it's also 20% off. In fact, you can buy last year's for even less money, the CFE 2023 course, it's also 20% off. It's dramatically less expensive than the current course. And let's be honest, not much of this stuff actually goes out of date year to year. So, if you're looking for a real deal on something you can use your CME dollars for and really get a lot of good education, that's a great option. There's like 50 hours of material in these CFE courses. It's basically a packaged up version of that year's WCICON. And so, it's a great opportunity.

You can check out the courses. Easiest place is probably just to go to whitecoatinvestor.com. And go up to the Courses tab at the top. But you can also click on whitecoatinvestor.com/courses and go there as well.

Okay, we've got a really cool interview today. It actually aligns really well with our sponsor for this episode. I found out after we finished this recording with this guest, who has done a lot of locum tenens, that she's actually done a lot of work with CompHealth. She's very positive about her experience there. So, keep that in mind.

When we pick sponsors for WCI, when we have recommended advisors or insurance agents or whatever, these are people that we think are the good people out there that are doing a good job. And so, while there's only so much vetting you can do and there's no guarantees, these people are buying ads from us. We obviously have a conflict of interest there. We're trying to get the best people in front of you out there. We're trying to connect you with the good guys in the financial services industry. So keep that in mind when you realize who's helping us to complete our mission here as White Coat Investor. Thank you for supporting them. That does help to support our mission.

Stick around after this interview. We're going to talk for a few minutes about trading. Trading, yeah, like trading stocks, trading options, whatever. We're going to talk about trading for a few minutes. So, stick around after the interview and we will do that.

 

INTERVIEW

Our guest today on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast is Sophia. Sophia, welcome to the podcast.

Sophia:
Hi, thanks for having me.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Let's start by just introducing you a little bit. Tell us what you do for a living, how far you are at a school and what part of the country you live in.

Sophia:
Yeah, I'm a family nurse practitioner and I finished school about 12 years ago. I'm originally from Miami, Florida, and that's my home base. But I have been working as a locum tenens nurse practitioner for the last nine years. So you'll find me all over the country.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. And you recently hit a milestone. Tell us what milestone we're celebrating today.

Sophia:
Yeah, we're celebrating a millionaire status.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Awesome.

Sophia:
I became a millionaire. Awesome.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
You're a millionaire. How does that feel?

Sophia:
Yeah, it feels great. I have less worries, less stress. Can do whatever I want now.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. Very cool. A million might not be what it used to be. When we think of our image of a millionaire from the 1920s or whatever, that's actually probably a decamillionaire now. But it's still a big number that means a lot to people. I think those of us who are millionaires can remember the first time we realized we crossed that line and it was a big deal. So, congratulations to you. This is a big deal.

Sophia:
Thank you. Yeah, for sure. The net worth just continues to increase rapidly since then.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, they say the first million is the hardest. And it's true. It is the hardest. It takes the longest. After that, you've got your money helping you to do some of the heavy lifting. Okay, let's talk about what your net worth is. It's everything you own minus everything you owe. Your assets minus your liabilities. So tell us about your assets. What do you own?

Sophia:
My current net worth is $1.6 million. I'm 60% in the stock market. 35% real estate and 5% in cash. I don't have any current debt. I only have debt in the mortgages for my rental properties in which I have three rental properties. Most of my net worth is in a brokerage account. I have $550,000 in a brokerage, $370,000 retirement accounts, like a 401(k) and IRA. And then I have real estate, which equity is about $450,000.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. Are you renting or do you live in a home you own right now?

Sophia:
With locum tenens, since I'm provided housing, I don't technically have a home I'm paying for. When I go back home to Miami, I rent a room from one of my relatives. So, that's usually just a few hundred bucks a month.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. You made this transition. It sounds like, what, about three years into your career, you said, “I'm going to do full-time locums.”

Sophia:
Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Tell us about that. I think there's a lot of people that dream about doing this. Tell us about what that's been like the last nine years.

Sophia:
Yeah. After three years of working as a permanent nurse practitioner, I got bored of the same routine, every day is the same thing. I decided to take a local locum tenens assignment to see if I was comfortable with jumping into somewhere new and meeting new people all the time. And that was fine. So then I took my first assignment all the way in the opposite side of the country, which was near Seattle, Washington. And it was amazing. I liked working with different populations. I like to travel and the pay was much more as well.

In addition, I've been able to save a lot because of locum tenens, they cover housing. They give me a rental car. Those are usually the number one cost that people have. And since I don't have those costs, I'm able to save most of my paychecks. In addition, most providers end up working most of the year, only have two to four weeks off per year. And I always knew that wasn't the type of life I wanted to live. I want to have more time off to travel abroad.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Amen to that. That's not the type of life I want to live either.

Sophia:
Yeah. It's the best when you have flexibility. For most of the time I've been doing locums. I work only nine months a year. And I sit three months off to travel abroad or spend time with my family.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. What are some of your favorite places you've been?

Sophia:
Yeah. Well, being from Miami, I like to be warm and near the beach. But I take advantage of the summer to go up north. I really enjoyed being in Maine because it's really laid back. I like the scenery. And during the lunch break, the doctors would go fishing. That's how laid back it was. I've also liked working in Virginia. I worked at the geriatric clinic and they have clinics all over the US. I've been able to work with them in different places already knowing the system. So, it's been a really easy transition.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. And how about when you're off? Where do you like to travel to when you're off? You mentioned some foreign travel. Where's your favorite places there?

Sophia:
Yeah, I travel everywhere. I've been to almost 60 countries. But I took a sabbatical once I became a millionaire in 2022. I spent three months in Barcelona and I ended up meeting my partner here. Now I go to Barcelona and spend three months a year. I'm actually in Barcelona right now because my partner is going to be moving to the US next month.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. Well, I appreciate you recording this, even though you're eight hours ahead of us. Luckily, it's morning time here in Utah while we're recording. So it's not too late for you. This is super-duper cool. I'm curious, if you add in the benefits of the car and the rent and everything they cover for you, how much more do you think you get paid doing locums on a daily basis or an hourly basis compared to if you were sitting there in Miami, working a regular family nurse practitioner job? How much more do you think you get paid? Do you get paid a third more? Twice as much? What are we talking about?

Sophia:
Yeah, definitely. I would say maybe it's almost double. When I took my first job in Florida, which is a low paying state, I was paid $94,000 a year. And then I got a raise of $124,000 a year. But in locums, currently, I only work six months a year and I make $200,000 a year. So, that's almost double. Not including the benefits of the housing and car. Without having a house and a car payment I'm able to save an extra $30,000 a year probably.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, that's wild. You couldn't have made a better advertisement for our sponsor of this podcast. The sponsor of this actual podcast is CompHealth which is a big locum company. They're always trying to get the message out about locums. But this is a legitimate way people go out and increase their income.

Now, it's a little bit of a unique lifestyle. And this might not work if you've got a bunch of kids that are in high school. But even if you have young kids, my friend Leif Dahleen, this is what he did for the first six years or so of his anesthesia career. He was full time locums all the time. Him and his wife, they'd go rent and use the cars they were given them. They made good money, put a whole bunch of it away and reached financial independence very quickly. So it absolutely does work.

All right. Now, you became interested in finance at some point. When did you become financially literate and decide, “You know what? I'm going to save a bunch of this and try to reach some financial goals.”

Sophia:
Yeah, I think it started in 2019 because I was working an assignment and I had saved up to buy a rental property and I maxed out my 401(k). I bought the rental property and I still had an extra $100,000 in the bank. So I was like, “Oh, what do I do with this?” I searched on YouTube and I found a couple called Our Rich Journey. And they're a couple from California that retired early in their 40s and moved to Portugal. And that's when I became really interested in investing more.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. And you're almost living kind of a FIRE lifestyle now with all the travel you do. I think that's the way it works for lots of people. It's not nose to the grindstone, 1.5 FTEs for 12 years and then punch out completely. For a lot of people, it's cutting back. It's “How can I enjoy some of my freedom now?” Because financial independence is not an instantaneous thing. As you become more and more financially independent, you can take advantage of that.

How come you've decided on the split you have between your stock, your index fund investments and your real estate investments? How come you didn't decide to go more into real estate or more into stocks, for instance?

Sophia:
I like to be diversified. It really helped during the COVID times because the stock market did go down. And I like that the rental rates went up during that time. I didn't have to worry about having no income from investments. And the stock market, it's easier, more passive. It's less work than having rental properties.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Now you're in Barcelona. I assume you're not managing the rental properties yourself.

Sophia:
I actually own two of the rental properties with my sister.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Okay.

Sophia:
And so, she helps manage them. And then we self-manage the properties. One of the houses I own on my own. And if I need anything, I just call the plumber to go fix it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Okay.

Sophia:
Or my dad will help me out.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
So you are able to manage it from Barcelona.

Sophia:
Yeah.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. Well, that's our digitized world and that's pretty cool. Now, a lot of people that think about going into real estate, they're like, “Oh, it's a second job, or I'm going to get 03:00 A.M. toilet calls.” Have you ever gotten a 03:00 A.M. toilet call?

Sophia:
No. I think the most important thing is making sure you screen your tenants really well and make sure they're able to pay them a good job, good income. And also that they're handy. They can fix little things on their own. That way they're not calling you every second for little problems.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Do you actually ask them that when they're applying to live there? Do you ask them how handy they are?

Sophia:
Yeah.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I wonder if you're allowed to discriminate against people based on their handiness. I don't think that's a protected class. They can't be disabled, of course, but you can't discriminate against that. But I don't think just not being handy counts as a disability. Sorry to all of you out there who can't replace a doorknob, but that's the way it is. Very cool.

All right. Well, you've been very successful. I think there are probably a lot of nurse practitioners, PAs, pharmacists, even docs out there that go, “Oh, I wish I had that in my life. I wish I could spend three months in Barcelona. I wish I could control my schedule. I wish I could work all over the country. I wish I was a millionaire.” What were your secrets to success? Why have you been successful?

Sophia:
Yeah, I think going back to the locum tenens, again, it really is a life hack. When I started at the time, there weren't many nurse practitioners doing it. I created a blog, travelingnp.com, and I've been able to help a lot of nurse practitioners start doing it. They're able to do it, even like you said, with their children.

I know nurse practitioners with young children. They go on RVs and work throughout the U.S. Sometimes they have a spouse that's able to work from home, so they can help out with their child care. Other times they leave their kids at home. If they work in the hospital, they go for one week to the site, then they go back home for the week, and they feel like they have more time with their kids instead of having to work a regular schedule back at home.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. What's next for you and your financial goals?

Sophia:
I have a large cash portion right now because I am saving to buy a primary residence. I think I want to have a place to go back to that's my own and for my partner when he moves to the U.S. And when I'm not using it, I want to be able to maybe rent it out like on Airbnb or as a midterm rental. And I'm also looking to grow my net worth to $2 million. That way I can be more comfortable and have more flexibility, even more flexibility.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. Well, I'll bet you are going to accomplish both of those goals in relatively short order. So, congratulations to you, Sophia, on all of your financial success. And thank you for being willing to come on the Milestones to a Millionaire podcast to share it with others and inspire them to do the same.

Sophia:
Thank you so much.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Okay, I hope you enjoyed that interview. That was a lot of fun. Here's somebody that's crushing it, crushing it through locums. If your lifestyle works with locums, I'd encourage you to check it out. It's a pretty cool way to do your career. My first four years of my career, I got to practice medicine on four different continents.

Now, my locums agency happened to be the U.S. Air Force, and I didn't have a lot of choice in my assignments. You have much more if you're working with a typical locums agency like CompHealth. You get to choose where you go, when you work, sometimes even how much you work there. You can have local locums that's near your house. You can have locums that's in New Zealand. You can go with your spouse if you want. You might buy the ticket for your spouse, whatever. You can take your kids there and stay in a place that would be okay with your kids. Maybe as they get into school, that becomes a little bit harder.

But there's a lot of different ways locums can work with your career. If you don't like where you're working, go check some other places out, and you'll probably find someplace you like better. I've run into a lot of docs that that's the way they found their long-term gig was it started out as a locums gig. And they're like, “I love it here. I love it in Maine. I love going fishing at lunch.” And so, that's what they do for their career, and they move. And it's pretty cool to be able to do that.

 

FINANCE 101: TRADING

All right, I told you we were going to talk about trading. I ran a blog post on the blog about a month ago. I wrote it, I don't know, a year before that, before we ever got around to writing it. I called that post 11 Reasons I Don't Trade Investments. And you can go search the blog. There's a search tab at the upper right on the website. If you go to whitecoatinvestor.com and just put in 11 Reasons I Don't Trade Investments and you can see this post. I'm not going to read the post to you.

But I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the ideas in that post. Because I get emails all the time. I see people posting spam comments on whitecoatinvestor.com, on the blog posts, or on the forum, or subreddit, or whatever, all the time, talking about trading. And usually they're selling some sort of system to help you to trade so you can be super successful jumping in and out of stocks, or options, or crypto assets, or whatever.

But I want you to be very skeptical when you see these things, when you talk to people doing this. Because when you really step back and think about it, none of this really makes much sense. I get that maybe some people are just learning about this stuff, or wanting to evangelize it, and really believe that it's true. But most of the time, it's just not true. I wish people that are doing it well. But I encourage you to do a few things if you're really into trading.

The first is to actually calculate your returns. If you will do this, and you will do this faithfully, especially if you will adjust for the value of your time, and the additional taxes and expenses you are generating by doing it, most of the time you will discover that you would have been better off not spending that time trading. That you would have been better off just spending your time doing something else in your life. And something hopefully more fun for you.

Although most traders I talk to say they enjoy it. But really what they enjoy is they think they're making money. And in the end, a lot of times they aren't making money. That's really unfortunate. Whether they are scalp trading, buying in and out of a stock every few seconds or minutes, whether they are day trading, whether they are swing trading or position trading, usually has the same issues with it.

How do people try to do this? Well, they're trying to divine the future. They're trying to look at the daily economic news, and figure out which way the value of a stock or the market itself is going to go. Or they're doing technical analysis, which is a nice name for what's mostly black magic or voodoo. It's a lot of guesswork. It's a little bit of gambling and a lot of guesswork. And sometimes it works out okay for people. But most of the time it does not work out okay for people. They lose money. The SEC has statements out telling you basically don't do this. There are lots and lots and lots of people out there who have lost money doing this.

But let me just tell you what the 11 reasons are that I don't trade investments. The first one is that trading doesn't add any value to the world. Maybe it helps keep prices a little bit more efficient than they would otherwise be in the market. But you don't need these people buying in and out every day in order to do that. I'm already financially independent. I don't have to work for money. When I do work, because fun is most of the time a lot more fun than work. When I do work, I want to do it because I enjoy it and because I'm making a contribution to the world.

Well, I don't enjoy trading. It's not fun to sit behind a computer and analyze the numbers and buy in and buy out. I'd rather go rafting or climbing or canyoneering or whatever. And it's not adding any value to the world. I'm not helping anybody. At least here recording this podcast, hopefully somebody out there is getting something beneficial out of it. They'll change their lives. They'll be happier. They'll take better care of patients. They'll be a better parent, better partner, whatever. When I go to the ER and try to take care of people I actually enjoy that. I enjoy putting in a chest tube. I enjoy suturing up a laceration. I enjoy talking to people about their belly pain and trying to give them some relief. I think it's fun. I don't enjoy trading. And so, you got to think about that.

Another reason why I don't trade is that most people have not adjusted the returns for the risk they're taking on, the additional taxes they're having to pay and the effort they're having to put in. If you actually calculate all that stuff, you might not be making as much money as you think you are. In fact, there's a good chance you're losing money. And so, if you do want to trade, please account for all that stuff.

The taxes by themselves are a huge nightmare. You might make 2,500 transactions in a year. And guess what? They all come to you if you're trading in a taxable account. They all come to you on 1099 at the end of the year. And granted, most software can just download it directly from Vanguard or Fidelity or whatever. But imagine if you had to put that in by hand. How many days would you spend doing your taxes for this activity you've decided to do?

A bigger problem, I think, with people trading is I think a lot of them are just addicted to gambling. Gambling addiction is very real. There's a reason they have Gamblers Anonymous and all these kinds of helplines for gamblers. Whether you are gambling in a casino or you are gambling in the market, it's really kind of the same thing. If you really enjoy gambling, you think gambling is fun, block out $400, go to Vegas and lose it. Maybe sometimes you'll come home with some money and that's great.

But real investing is not a casino, It's not about figuring out if Apple's going to be worth more in 16 minutes than it is today. It's about owning Apple because Apple makes a whole bunch of iPhones and iPhones are cool and really useful. They make a whole bunch of MacBooks and MacBooks are really cool and really useful and a whole bunch of people buy them and Apple makes profit. And when you own Apple for 10 years, you get a share in those profits. That's an investor. If you're buying it, hoping the price goes up in 16 minutes, that's a gambler. And you're speculating at that point. That's not what investing is all about. So, don't do that.

You might also end up having to register with EDGAR, which is a regulatory agency. If you're making too many trades, that's apparently a big pain to have to register with EDGAR and I don't think you want to necessarily do that.

The biggest issue though is just that most traders are not successful. They're just not. They lose money. I've talked to lots of docs that were trying to day trade in between patients in 1999 through 2002. It didn't work out well for them. They quit doing that because they realized, “Hey, this is stupid.” It's not a smart way to manage your money. The SEC will tell you that. Every investing authority I know out there will tell you that. And yet there's still people that believe it's not true.

Who's on the other side of these trades you're making. Who's on the other sides? Well, it's probably a very powerful computer managed by some very smart people working 80 hours a week sitting there on Wall Street. You are not trading with average Joe. That's not who's buying the other end of your stocks. They're better equipped than you. They have more knowledge than you. Bill Bernstein likes to use the analogy that day trading is like playing tennis with an invisible partner. And what you don't realize is that your partner is Serena Williams. This is not going to end well for you. You don't have an advantage over this person and you're probably going to come out behind.

You're trying to generate alpha. Beta is the market return. The thing you can get just by buying an index fund and forgetting about it for 20 years is super easy. Alpha is trying to beat that and that's what traders are trying to do. But remember, before expenses, before taxes, net alpha is zero. Just as many people as get positive alpha must have negative alpha. There's not extra alpha out there you can tap into. You got to take it from someone else and you may or may not feel very good about that. But the point is they're working very hard not to give it to you. It's hard.

And so, these people come into you saying, “I'm going to sell you my trading secrets for six payments of $499.99.” This doesn't make any sense. These people are saying they can beat the market. They're saying they can get 60% returns a year. Well, here's the truth of the matter. If you can get 60% returns every year, you are going to own the entire net worth of the world in 45 years. It's mind boggling that people believe this. It's like they can't do math. You're not going to own the entire world in 45 years. You're not going to get 60% returns every year. It's just not going to happen. And if somebody knew how to do that, they're not going to sell it to you for just a few thousand dollars. Are you kidding me? They've got a money printing machine. They're going to take their secret and they're going to use it and make gazillions.

And if you're a talented trader, you got this great system. Why in the world would you just be managing your measly little six or seven figure portfolio? There's no way you'd be doing that, much less your five figure portfolio. It doesn't make sense. You should be managing billions of dollars because people will pay you a lot of money if you can beat the market by 1 or 2% a year reliably. You'd be amazed how much people will pay you to do that.

And so, it doesn't make sense to be just using your money if you truly are this talented. None of this is logical. People get sucked into these trading games. They get sucked into these schemes. They end up paying a bunch of money in taxes. They waste a bunch of time and they set themselves back financially.

Instead, I would encourage you to spend your time and effort making a real contribution to the world that is valued by others, carve out a big chunk of your income, invest it in some reasonable way that doesn't suck up all your time, give it a few years and you will retire very comfortably and be able to leave lots of money to your favorite charities and your favorite heirs. This stuff is not that complicated. Don't make it more complicated than it has to be.

 

SPONSOR

Earlier, we mentioned working locums with CompHealth, the number one staffing agency, but CompHealth isn't just a locums agency. CompHealth staffs regular permanent positions across the nation as well. They also offer telehealth, medical missions and more.

That's what makes them unique. They can look at your situation and offer multiple solutions to build your career the way you want it and meet your financial goals. And they know their stuff, especially when it comes time to negotiate contracts, which they're willing to do for you. Whatever career move you're looking for, check out CompHealth. Use the power of CompHealth to build your career your way. Learn more at comphealth.com.

All right, if you've accomplished a financial milestone, you can apply to come on the show, whitecoatinvestor.com/milestone. For the rest of you, keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this. We'll see you next time on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast.

 

DISCLAIMER

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