There are plenty of words that underscore our life experience through the ages, but few resonate with humanity more than this simple four-letter word: work. Whether it’s building pyramids in the scorching deserts of ancient Egypt, slugging sixty homers for the 1929 Yankees, or bypassing the aorta valve of a beating heart – we are, with some lucky exceptions, a species of workers. But in stark contrast to the millions of other species that share this planet, our work, which typically consumes the lion’s share of our productive years, has a purpose that transcends survival. Thanks to ever increasing life spans, favorable market conditions and the miracle of compounding interest, we can live well beyond our employment years.

Why did we do the paper?

It’s a challenging time to be in the field of medicine. Health care in the United States is in the throes of a convulsive reformation. A recent ABCNEWS / Washington Post poll shows that if given a choice, two out of three Americans would opt for a universal health insurance program over the current employer-based system.

Most people in our industry would say they care. “So many firms talk about differentiating. We don’t know how you can differentiate without doing something different.”

We have invested a tremendous amount of time working with physicians, such as yourself.

The vision of this project was to sort through all the noise - to have quiet conversations with individuals that are involved in the system. We interviewed physicians from a variety of specialties, along with professionals in banking, hospital administration, medical liability law and insurance – all with the goal of understanding how best to serve the present and future financial needs of highly trained and deeply committed health care professionals. That way, when the time comes and the beachside hammock beckons – work is, and remains, optional.

Insights and Highlights

Is managed care your main source of revenue?

Does your dependency on managed care revenue continue to grow as do the frustrations?

Are operating costs, both labor and equipment, increasing at a faster rate than reimbursement rates?

Are you working to work, feeling burned out due to mental and physical strain of meeting career, family and personal life demands? How are you going to manage making it to your child’s school event tomorrow evening?

Is the reality of retirement creeping up, during the busiest time of your life, and you do not have appropriate financial planning?

Physicians are under pressure today to have a practice, a family and a personal life as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. “Living the Work Optional Lifestyle” is a useful tool in the physician's armamentarium.

Physicians who have made work optional invariably note it was the approach used by their professional advisers was consistent with a their medical training; learn about the issues that concerned them the most, discover what solutions made the most sense for their circumstances, determine how to turn the solutions into reality and closely monitor the results to make adjustments as necessary.

Given the current climate of change, it’s not surprising that the organisms within the system are adapting to survive in a variety of ways. While financial rewards are not the primary reason why you do what you do, bills have to be paid, and a comfortable retirement is a fitting reward for years of hard work, risk and constant stress. Maintaining and increasing revenues is an ongoing concern – a concern that is expressed in national surveys and, more intimately, among those physicians that we interviewed. Chief among these adaptations is the enterprise solution, or as one of our interviewees tellingly stated: “less reimbursement, more entrepreneur.”

You can request a copy of our whitepaper “Living the Work Optional Lifestyle” by clicking here.