If I were limited to giving no more than one piece of advice to a graduating class of health professionals, it would be this: get yourselves first-class disability insurance now, while you’re still young and healthy!
Health professionals generally have far worse disability coverage than many other professions. Non-salaried medical doctors often have none! One of the reasons health professionals are so reticent to seek and comply with treatment for illnesses is that they often face extensive periods of treatment during which they cannot work, typically at least one year for the treatment of addiction or mental illness.
Without adequate disability insurance, they feel they simply can’t afford the time off work. Some face the prospect of losing their homes, bankruptcy is also a real possibility and their families suffer the repercussions. Rather than face this, health professionals frequently soldier on in the workplace, hiding their illness until they are found out at work, which complicates matters greatly by causing additional disciplinary and legal issues.
I have seen many health professionals literally lose everything they had because they did not have adequate disability coverage. Imagine trying to recover from an addiction or a mental illness while dealing with this kind of financial stress!
Young graduates may think: “I’m healthy, that won’t happen to me!” but some of my previously healthy classmates have been diagnosed with cancer, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, addictions, mental illness, etc… Some have died. And I’m only in my mid-fifties!
First-class disability insurance can be expensive and often cannot be written off against one’s income. But it is cheaper to get coverage when people are young and healthy. Fortunately, things like addiction, substance dependency, alcoholism and mental illness are now considered illnesses and are recognized by insurance companies as such (sadly, this was not always the case). Equally good news is that while the insurance premiums often are not tax write offs, the disability payments are tax-exempt as a consequence.
I was not taught any of this in medical school. I was fortunate enough to know a classmate who was knowledgeable and who had enough insight to realize he was not invulnerable and that life can be very unpredictable. He was able to persuade me to get disability insurance. I had not yet developed substance dependency and my bipolar illness would not be properly diagnosed for at least another 15 years. My medical history was “clean”. As a consequence, my disability insurance, although expensive, was nevertheless affordable and relatively easy to obtain, while still in my mid-twenties. I never thought I would need it. I know of no other classmate who obtained disability insurance at such an early stage, immediately upon entering the workforce. It was one of the smartest moves of my life.
Recovery from mental illness and substance dependency involves long periods of treatment and long absences from work. Having a secure source of income during these necessary periods of off-work recovery can greatly alleviate the stress caused by income-related worries.
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