Posted by Christopher Gregory on Mon, Feb 08, 2010 @ 01:04 PM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
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There are reasoned individuals who look deeply into the events taking place in domestic and global economies and write candidly about the economic maladies affecting all of us. Part of our mission at DocOnomics is to consider such views and reflect on them while formulating our own views tailored to a physician audience.
One such writer is widely syndicated and read by many individuals who seek guidance, insights and a common sense perspective on what is taking place in our economy and in our investment world. He has not been reluctant to criticize our political parties and their minions in both houses of Congress.
Most recently, he wrote a column suggesting that "Main Street Savers" should get a Wall Street bailout of their own - in the form of massive tax cuts on saving vehicles, retirement accounts, capital gains and dividends. While your DocOnomics authors view this as a worthy outside-the-box approach to stimulating savings which has been sorely lacking in this country until lately, we know this can never happen in our present economic straits. Not unless modern day Tea Parties start resembling the original Boston Tea Party protesting taxation without representation. Who knows, maybe we are headed there.
What might one day cause a modern day revolution in our thinking is an understanding of how government tries to control our thinking and shape our attitudes.
We submit for your consideration that the U.S. Government is not oblivious to the events taking place in our nation and the world. The facts speak for themselves. Unfortunately, government doesn't want to admit its wholesale failures, so glossing over irrefutable facts becomes the norm. This was evidenced by the Sunday ABC News interview of Treasury Secretary Geithner. In that interview, Geithner said there is absolutely no danger of the United States losing its AAA debt rating. "That will never happen to this country", said Geithner. This is bravado, pure and simple.
What is taking place is a manifestation of government in trouble. In Washington, the belief is that if something inaccurate or untrue is said often enough and forcefully enough, it will eventually be perceived as the truth by the people and will give the people comfort. Government relies upon the belief that eventually, people will accept and act on its erroneous messages and false proclamations. At DocOnomics, we believe that the outcome is reflective of the old introductory computer course teaching mantra of "garbage in, garbage out".
We invite you to click on the blue link below, which will take you to a 3 minute presentation on why the U.S. economy is in critical condition.
Presentation1.pdf
Stay tuned to the coming blogs, because we will return to our messages on steps that physicians can take to effctive self-directed wealth management.
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Posted by Christopher Gregory on Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 12:34 PM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
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The following item apeared on the Associated Press financial wire yesterday.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stores received a pleasant surprise in January as shoppers bought a little more clothing at mall stores, delivering solid gains for many retailers and providing more hope that a spending recovery that started late last year is being sustained.
Still, the sales reports, released Thursday, showed two kinds of consumers -- ordinary folks who are buying a little more but still focused on bargains, and the affluent who are spending more freely on Gucci and other luxury brands as they feel encouraged by their rebounding stock portfolios.
We pose a question to those individuals who are feeling "encouraged" by the optimistic reports that are being broadcast by politicians, government agencies and their investment brokers. As stock portfolios have rebounded since last March, has euphoria replaced reason? Is it conceivable to rationalize that there are numerous forces out there that are cloaked in artificiality and which have no logical links to the realities saturating our economy?
We are a nation of intelligent people, so we would do well to read and investigate the economic climate, so we won't wake up one day asking ourselves if we were truly delusional at the hands of false prophets
Consider a case in point, i.e., unemployment. Today, we heard that we lost 20,000 more jobs in January, but that the unemployment rate slipped to a five month low of 9.7%. According to one observer, " it shows net-net that we are seeing a slow improvement in the labor market."
One can only wonder if this is some sort of government "new math". How can the unemployment rate drop if more people lost their jobs? The answer is simple, if you understand that desperate spin is at work. The reason the unemployment figure has dropped is because a lot of people became disillusioned and simply quit looking for a job. When that happens, the government drops them off the rolls of the unemployed - they're no longer included in the grim numbers. What this optimistic government spin simply means is that a lot more than 20,000 people disappeared from the government jobless rolls because they quit searching for work.
Beneath the headlines, the government reported the U.S. economy has lost 8.4 million jobs since the recession officially began in December 2007, a sharp upward revision from 7.2 million previously reported; that includes 930,000 jobs more than previously estimated in the 12 months ended March 2009.
What we are hearing, translated into speculation that better consumer times are coming, is the result of government furiously pumping billions into industries, e.g., cash for clunkers, the homebuyers subsidies, and whatever else they want to resuscitate.
There are few tangible signs anywhere that things are looking up based on sound, demonstrable economics.
DocOnomics refuses to participate in false optimism, because that would constitute a betrayal of our mission to tell it like it is.
If you would like to know more, let us know. We're hearing more and more questions that deserve good answers.
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Posted by Christopher Gregory on Thu, Feb 04, 2010 @ 02:45 PM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
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Don't look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system.
A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits.
Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it has done for decades, our nation's biggest social program needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing -- in other words, a taxpayer bailout.
What will this mean, after all the years of the government robbing the trust funds and the politicians vowing that the social contract with people who have paid into the system will remain strong and inviolate?
It means higher taxes - possibly higher than what we're already planning for in 2011. It could mean a complete elimination of the taxable wage base ceiling for Social Security. Translation - still higher taxes on the wealthy. Or maybe a FICA higher tax rate period.
The point to this is simple. We are seeing very large ravens coming home to roost, and yet a nation of Neros fiddles. Politician Neros, citizen Neros. All just fiddling.
We are also informed that our nation's healthcare spending, as a part of GDP, took the biggest jump in history. It is now 17.3%, and next year the government's share of total healthcare expenditures will be over 50%. So all the folks who swear they won't tolerate government run healthcare should take notice. Next year we won't have socialized medicine just in name, we'll have it by the numbers.
And Social Security will need a bailout.
If these aren't sobering facts, and if these facts don't have you looking for your lifeboats and lifejackets, what will compel action? This is the time for prudent survival instincts to become sharper looking ahead, and for planning to take a pathway to higher ground.
DocOnomics is not just a name, it is a strategy borne out of over 50 years of experience working with physicians. Hear us out and pay us a visit to see what we see coming for physicians.
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Posted by Christopher Gregory on Wed, Feb 03, 2010 @ 05:02 PM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
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Regarding personal taxes, we are now getting a glimpse at what is in store.
Individual Tax
The heart of tax increases on upper income households (families earning $250,000+) is found in the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. What this will do is raise the top income tax rates from the current 33% and 35% respectively, to 36% and 39.6% respectively. If the Bush tax cuts simply expire, long-term capital gains taxes will increase from 15% to 20%, and qualified dividends currently taxed at 15% will be taxed as ordinary income up to 39.6%. In his budget, President Obama has proposed a 20% tax rate on both capital gains and dividends.
If the Bush tax cuts expire, the exemption on estate taxes per individual will revert from $3.5 million in 2009, to $1 million in 2011 with a top-end rate of 45%. It is expected that this year Congress will restore the $3.5 million exclusion, retroactive to January 1, 2010 (but that is not a certainty in light of constitutional challenges expected).
All in all, prior tax giveaways, government folly and lack of oversight have gotten us into a fine mess, and now it is time to pay the piper. We simply cannot practice fiscal alchemy - we can't solve our budget crisis by continuing to manufacture a debasing currency and try to make it work like gold. Papering over our problems simply doesn't work in the real world.
So we will feel the pinch in our paychecks, on April 15 and on October 15. We'll observe budget cuts, publicly-lamented, heartbreaking elimination of federal programs, and life will not be as easy as it has been in the past when individuals were feasting on easy credit and their home equity piggybanks.
Let's keep an eye on Colorado Springs and California, and watch their reality tv (read the last DocOnomics blog, if you want to see what we mean).
Stay tuned to this blog. We will have some ideas about ways to deal with the higher taxes.
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Posted by Christopher Gregory on Tue, Feb 02, 2010 @ 07:00 AM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
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A news story appeared in the January 31, 2010 Denver Post. We'll excerpt a part here.
COLORADO SPRINGS - This tax-averse city, home to the United States Air Force Academy, is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops - dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.
You can read the full story HERE
The reason we chose to run this item in today's blog is to demonstrate a visible shred of evidence about a silent economic crisis that is likely being duplicated around the nation. Consider that Colorado Springs, demographically a well-to-do city and the second largest and fastest-growing city in Colorado is responding to tax adversity because citizens are feeling the results of the follies that have taken place in government.
It is particularly interesting because this showcases the difference we are experiencing in local and state governments, compared to the federal government.
The federal government, facing declining tax revenues and experiencing the backlash from publicly clamored-for tax cuts which politicians were happy to serve up to mollify the masses, will simply print more money to wallpaper over our core fiscal problems. We'll short-term fix our deficits by adding more debt, and leave the I.O.U.s to be paid by future generations. The question is how soon those future generations will begin to stagger under the load created by our political-economic vices.
State and local governments can't print currencies, so the effects of shortfalls are more visceral. Ask the people of Colorado Springs.
At DocOnomics, we remain steadfast in our views about the need to protect assets and ensure the stability of incomes into lifespans lasting well into our 80's, 90's and even to age 100. We urge readers to take stock of their financial inventories and take steps to ensure that balance exists between asets that provide for immediate needs and assets intended to provide for long durations. This can be examined and strategies can be implemented to maintain the right kind of surveillance for the sake of personal wealthcare.
If you have any questions or would like to know more about how this strategy can be accomplished, let us know.
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Posted by Christopher Gregory on Sun, Jan 31, 2010 @ 01:06 PM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
*************************************************************
AARP represents the core tenets of DocOnomics, i.e., accumulate, allocate, react and protect. Today, we will concentrate on protect, and rationalize a strategy to contemplate as we move forward in truly uncharted waters. Consider these areas:
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Inside the U.S. Treasury Department, there is a special independent watchdog. The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) has warned that the problems that led to our historic meltdown have not been addressed and in some cases have grown worse, making it more likely that the United States will face a deeper crisis in the future.
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Since Congress passed the $700 billion financial bailout, the remaining banking institutions considered "too big to fail" have grown larger and failed to restrain the lavish pay for their executives. Without meaningful reform "we are still driving on the same winding road, but this time in a faster car".
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The Treasury Department said it welcomed the Special Inspector General's oversight, but will resist the call to establish new barriers against conflicts of interest. Our own government has indicated it is unwilling to protect us from a repeat performance of the misdeeds which nearly sent us back to bread lines.
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Leading U. S. economists have repeatedly warned that there will be a heavy price to pay for failure to plan for longevity, i.e., ensuring sufficient income to last into our 80's, 90's and to age 100. Your DocOnomics authors have long maintained that this is the new critical mission of wealth management
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One of our long-time favorite financial writers has reported on the five year annualized returns on his 5 highly regarded and frequently touted "couch potato" portfolios which use equal investments in from two to ten index funds that represent major asset classes. Those portfolios returned a range over five years, from a low of 3.17% to a high of 5.88%.
Pulling it all together, we reiterate that steps must be taken to protect income for the long term.
Here is something to consider. Annuities are intended to protect long-term incomes. Not only do annuities offer protection of principal, but they also offer conservative growth potential. Specifically, the new generation annuities offer opportunities for growth that, once growth is recognized and credited, it cannot be lost in subsequent market declines.
The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is the largest bank in Canada. In 2008 (latest study) the Canadian banking system was named the world's soundest banking system by The World Economic Forum. RBC offers a fixed index annuity that guarantees 7.5% compound interest for ten years - where the income accumulation will be employed to guarantee an income for life. Any credited annuity gains are guaranteed, fixed and backed by a highly recognized, financially sound bank.
We are addressing "protect". Protect against 1) living too long and running out of income, 2) protect against inept government oversight of U.S. banks and 3) protect against losses of principal during investment market declines.
If you want to know more about annuities from experts, contact us.
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Posted by Christopher Gregory on Sat, Jan 30, 2010 @ 12:44 PM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
*************************************************************
This time is different, isn't it?
This time, we've learned hard valuable lessons that will slowly, steadily lead us back to economic wellness. We've defeated the wasteful healthcare legislation that would have added vast sums to the federal budget deficit. We're rightly focusing on jobs. In the last 9 months we have seen a reinvigorated financial market system that has shown signs of great things to come. Now is the time to return to investing in equities and now is the time to listen to optimistic voices telling us that we should not miss opportunities that will be coming.
We are sadder and wiser about the follies that inflated bursting bubbles that nearly destroyed our economy.
We can hopefully look ahead as our government is going to undergo a significant change this election year. We will jettison a number of more-big-government-is-better Democrats (some of whom are already running for the hills) and hopefully restore partisan balance to Washington.
This is America. We are resilient and we will survive because we've learned valuable lessons about greed, excesses, lax government oversight and what it means to allow special interests and shadow influences to have their way with us. Henceforth, nobody who pillages the system should be considered "too big to fail". Government is, as it should be, poised to lead for the people's sake.
Now that intrusive government interference has been sent packing, health care in this country will be reenergized by new private sector initiatives to bend the cost curve and allow individuals to keep their favored health care coverages while becoming more involved in wise consumer choices. Pharms like Pfizer, Astra Zeneca and Sanofi Adventis will continue to help those who can't afford their medications. We will become a leaner healthcare system because we've learned where our excesses are and what we need to do to fix them. Doctors will gladly abandon an archaic, bloated fee-for-service system in favor of new or expanded hospital and physician healthcare networks and reorganized delivery systems that will show the rest of the world that free enterprise healthcare works after all.
I was lectured by a physician this week, that these things will happen, just as I've heard other physicians proclaim that the U.S. healthcare system and the medical profession will thrive amid new quality, cost-effective initiatives - if we simply allow American free enterprise to remain in control. The insurance companies are not villians, we just need to peacefully coexist. We will find a way to tend to our aging Baby Boomers just fine, you'll see. Doctors will be able to return to the real business of medicine - patients!
Doctor, your optimism is admirable. But it should be pointed out that there are many physicians who would describe those sentiments as, well .....
Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisor
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Posted by Christopher Gregory on Wed, Jan 27, 2010 @ 01:29 PM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
*************************************************************
Living into our 80's, 90's and even to age 100 is no longer considered extraordinary. While living longer is a testimony to medical science, it is an ironic twist that many physicians procrastinate when it comes to looking ahead to their own financial futures. Failure to establish a game plan for longevity will invariably produce undesirable financial consequences as we continue on our path marked by debts and deficits that have brought us to an altogether unrecognizable lanscape. Today, we can see that market behavioral norms, benchmarks and equilibrium points that existed previously have all but vanished and we are voyagers in uncharted territories.
The question to ask is "will there be sufficient assets to support our lifestyles for many years?" This has been a central issue in DocOnomics writings, discussions and in our work with physicians. Many still haven't given the subject enough consideration and, frankly, many physicians just don't get it. Far too often, such considerations have been put off until it is too late or until it is much more difficult to effect meaningful changes.
Exacerbating matters, the aftermath of economic destruction over the last three years has sent many individuals into their caves, where little effective, corrective planning and reasoned thinking can occur. At the opposite extreme, purveyors of false economic hope compelled by desperation are sounding an irresistible siren song for legions of investors who are hungry for restoration of that which was lost in the meltdown and bursting of bubbles. The market's rebound over the last 9 months has been grossly oversold in an environment of wickedly poor fundamentals.
Reflecting on many discussions, we believe few physicians have given serious, measured consideration to the subject of longevity. They don't know how and efforts geared to help physicians look ahead are often delayed or ignored. Far greater emphasis is placed on the immediate, tantalizing notion of gathering (or recouping) assets - the process of accumulation. Scant attention is given to the notion of spending down assets over an extended timeframe - the process of decumulation. We have read the writings of and corresponded with numerous respected economists who are almost unanimous in their conclusions about the consequences of remaining ignorant about longevity: they believe there will be a price to pay for failing to consider this critical element of wealth management.
However, we hear and read stories about concerns surrounding longevity. For example, in a January 14 Bloomberg report, "a majority of wealthy Americans said they're concerned that they won't have enough retirement income to last through their lifetimes. Households with a net worth from $5 million to $25 million invest 47 percent of their assets themselves, with no professional help".
[We at DocOnomics understand that many wealthy individuals fired their investment advisors in the wake of the meltdowns which took place during the bursting of bubbles. We rationalize that many pink slips were handed out to investment advisors and brokerages because of investing schemes by firms like Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers that were poorly tied to effective planning efforts and far more focused on making money in risky environments.]
CLIMATE CHANGE FORECASTED
How does wealth management planning effect positive results? We believe it begins with an understanding that a global economic climate change is underway. Debts and deficits may decisively have an impact on investing. Barring some unforeseen acts by government, interest rates may be adversely affected as the government tries to float trillions of dollars in bonds in the coming years to service its debt.
The reason involves supply and demand. The interest rate is the price of money, or put another way, the cost of getting money. Increased demand for debt from the government would be expected to push the price of money - the interest rate - higher, just as increased demand for any commodity pushes its price higher.
Then if the yield on, say, the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond increases from its current level of 3.8 percent to 5 percent or higher, investors may start moving money out of stocks into bonds. This lower demand for stocks could cause their prices to drop.
Consider too that government will be changing tax rates. In fact, stock investors will have to pay higher taxes on their stock dividends and long-term capital gains relatively soon because the current 15 percent maximum tax rate on dividends and capital gains will expire at the end of 2010. That means the capital gains rate will rise to 20 percent, and dividends will be taxed as ordinary income, meaning up to almost 40 percent.
In other words, the after-tax returns on stocks are probably going lower unless Congress extends the tax cuts.
"If you decrease after-tax returns, asset prices [meaning stocks] should adjust downward," according to a recent analysis in Dow Theory Forecasts, a respected stock market newsletter.
WHAT IT ALL MEANS
While we are not endowed with a crystal ball to envision what lies ahead, prudent steps and small(er) bets are in our forecasts. We continue in our belief that it is vital to contemplate assets, objectives and planning with a reasoned and cautious eye on the future. Prospectively. the single most important step is to become an active participant in planning that proceeds on a series of intervals, i.e., navigating from a baseline plan that is regularly reviewed and adjusted to correct for course changes dictated by events taking place.
No one does this better than DocOnomics. We encourage you to schedule a complimentary visit with us to experience what it is like to work with professionals who understand the issues and challenges facing physicians.
Contact Chris Gregory at chris@doconomics.com to schedule a complimentary session.
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Posted by Christopher Gregory on Sat, Jan 23, 2010 @ 11:24 AM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
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We have often written that the uncertainties regarding reimbursements is a critical element that cuts right to the heart of physician wealth management - and it will continue to be a key factor. How will we sustain a health care system that grossly underpays for the needs of a growing Medicare population if physicians are getting hammered by payers everywhere?
Physician payments under Medicare were due to take a 21% hit on January 1 as a result of the snowballing effect of steadily deferred annual cuts mandated by the sustainable growth rate (SGR) budget neutrality formula enacted in 1997.
Congress has again sidestepped a permanent SGR fix by kicking the can down the road until March 1st - the shortest distance on record. The deferral appeared as an amendment to a defense appropriations bill signed by President Obama on December 19. This annual stopgap has become a recurring nightmare for physicians. There was some hope that health care reform would encompass a permanent fix to the SGR, and the first House draft bill included an SGR restructuring. But all bets are off now - anything substantive is an increasingly uncertain prospect with the January 19 election of Republican Scott Brown to fill Ted Kennedy's vacant Senate seat - there is nothing to indicate that there will be a fix for the SGR.
Physician frustration is mounting. In late December, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) filed suit against the Department of Human Services (HHS) in an effort to halt the 2010 Medicare physician fee cuts. The suit claimed that reductions for cardiologists, which ranged up to 40% for certain procedures, were based on a flawed analysis showing that the cost of providing cardiology care had dropped substantially over the last 5 years. On January 12, the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed the suit on the grounds that it lacked jurisdiction to review Medicare payment decisions. The ACC says it will continue its legal battle against the reductions. ACC president Alfred Bove, MD, said the cuts would encourage cardiologists to abandon private practice and seek hospital employment.
However these complex policy decisions play out, physicians will be seeking relief from the increasingly unpredictable business aspects of running a practice. Physician payment concerns are among the many macro- and micro-level market forces converging to drive hospitals and physicians to restructure the way in which care is delivered and, in doing so, raise the performance bar around quality, profitability and growth.
The relentlessly increasing reimbursement pressure that is driving many physicians to seek survival remedies (hospital affiliation/employment, practice mergers, etc) is a natural progression stemming from the economic deterioration taking place as debts, deficits and unemployment continue to send shock waves through the economy.
Your DocOnomics authors will continue to encourage physicians to take comprehensive stock of their personal wealth management plans and prepare for the cycles of inflation and deflation that will reverberate. We know how this has to happen - we've seen enough to know where the diagnostic tests should be performed.
Contact us if you need testing.
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
Doconomics Wealth Advisors
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Posted by Christopher Gregory on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 @ 11:00 AM
*************************************************************** Physicians Physicians face more risks than ever--in their professional practices and in their personal wealth management. Many physicians are not addressing these risks due to time pressures, emotional biases or false beliefs that their staffs and advisors are dealing with the issues.
DocOnomics is geared toward the physician who has a genuine interest in taking decisive action.
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Before presenting our thoughts du jour, I would like to offer an apology to those who may have read the most recent blog. The draft mistakenly sent was a (my) private rant, where a certain degree of comfort was derived from expressing personal disdain for the political process and its members. Unfortunately, what was intended to be a saved draft for further work and softening was mistakenly sent out with a wrong keystroke. While sentiments may remain unchanged, readers should not have to experience personal ire of the authors. Sincere apologies, that blog has been edited.
Christopher Gregory
WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress.
President Obama called it a big victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests.
In setting aside McCain-Feingold, it appears the United States Supreme Court has just permitted corporations to unleash their unlimited deep pockets in the political process of influence peddling.
A bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigns right up until the day of the election and upsetting more than 60 years of restrictions will radicalize elections, critics say.
According to one source "it's going to be the Wild Wild West, if corporations and unions can give unlimited amounts ... it means that the public debate is significantly changed with a lot more voices, and it means that the loudest voices are going to be corporations and unions."
The court swept aside its own previous judgments limiting corporate and union spending on advertising in federal elections - a decision that political operatives predicted will mean more negative campaign ads by the midterm elections this fall.
Among those financially powerful voices that will peddle influence and sway public opinion for favored candidates will be the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Their hold on profits and the fate of American health care would seem to be almost assured as the mid-term elections approach.
Once again, we urge members of the medical profession to seek high(er) ground and prepare financially by taking personal stock and preparing for the onslaught of initiatives that will seek to increase profits of special interests by placing the continuing squeeze on reimbursements. We ask again, how did United HealthCare increase profits by 30% while losing 1.7 million enrollees?
If you're concerned and need to talk, we're here and we have been listening for a long time.
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors
Randy L. Flink & Christopher M. Gregory
DocOnomics Wealth Advisors