Having Residual Disability (or Partial Disability) provisions in your policy can be the most important decision you (or your insurance consultant) make when you bought (or if you are considering buying) your Individual Disability Insurance policy. If you are eligible for Long Term Disability Insurance (Group) coverage from your employer, most probably, the definition of Disability includes a Residual component. However, having the coverage and getting paid under that coverage may cause you to be subjected to some creative refinancing of your financial information as assessed by your Disability Insurance Company. The beauty of Residual Disability coverage is that it […]

Believe it or not, the summer is already more than half over. With all of us thinking about when it is going to be our turn to “hit the beach”, you, the disabled physician, don’t want those words to apply to your claim with your Disability Insurance Company, as if it were “D-Day” at Normandy. The simultaneous crash of our stock, financial, and real estate markets and the significant long term recession in which we are currently mired, have likewise had a significant and adverse financial impact on your Disability Insurance Company. As a result of this “new economy”, you […]

If you are, or have been, involved in a disability insurance claim, you are keenly aware of the pitfalls and difficulties in prosecuting and maintaining your claim. But, if you think the claim’s process is difficult, try being involved in a professional licensure action at the same time. In most disability insurance cases that involve either a psychiatric, and/or an addiction component, there is often times a concurrent legal issue involving professional licensure. Both of these issues can be extremely complex in their own singular sense. The problem is, that in most cases, these issues can not be singularized and, […]

M.D. News, August 2008  In July of this year Clifford D. Swift, Esquire joined our firm as a Senior Associate. Prior to joining Mark F. Seltzer & Associates, Cliff was a prosecuting attorney for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of State, representing the Commonwealth, and its citizens, in professional licensure matters before several State Boards, including the State Board of Medicine. We are pleased to have Cliff with our firm and his knowledge and skill in state regulatory matters. Oftentimes, inherent in any state licensure matter, is a physician’s “fitness to practice” issue. However, other issues provoke the prosecution of […]

Published in M.D. News, May 2008  Working as a physician is highly demanding both from a physical and emotional perspective.  Increasingly, physicians, regardless of gender, face disabling health issues as a consequence of age, chronic emotional stress or from the impact of repetitive stress and strain from performing procedures.  Those stresses are significantly amplified for women who choose to have both a family and a medical career.  Female physicians must often be prepared to work what amounts to two full-time jobs; in addition to all of the physiological and emotional strains that come with practicing medicine, they also face special […]

How today’s disabled physicians can effectively protect their benefits.   In Part I of this series, you learned work-related and other health conditions that impair physicians’ abilities to practice. In Part II, you learned what to expect from an insurer when confronted with a disability claim. Now, in Part III, you will learn how to protect your benefits when your company is confronted with your disability claim. The most important factor to understand about the entire claims process is that your disability insurance policy is a contract. It is crucial to appreciate the important and pertinent provisions of your policy […]

The Insurers Strike Back: What to expect from your Disability Insurer when filing a claim. In Part 1, we explored how aging physicians today may experience work-related and other health problems impairing their abilities to practice their specialties or to continue practicing at all. In Part II, you’ll learn what to expect from your insurer when confronted with a disability insurance claim. Changes in the dynamics of the disability insurance industry over the last 10 or 15 years have caused your disability insurance company to become financially driven. The reality is that “it’s all about the money.” When the disability […]

Part I: Identifying Work-Related Conditions As a young attorney in the late1970s, I learned that surgeons and other physicians, often “retired” around the age of 60. In those days, doctors simply left their practices and went on with the rest of their lives, with their most effective and proficient years behind them. But, I always asked myself, why would surgeons at that considerably young age leave such a profound profession, something to which they devoted their entire professional lives? I have come to understand that “retirement” may not be what it’s really cracked up to be — because the physician […]

Background As a law firm dedicated to assisting and representing physicians and health care professionals with disability insurance claims and cases, we have seen, first hand, the disability insurance companies’ response to their “bad block of business” resulting from sales of excellent policies to the physician target market. During the 80’s and early 90’s, the “heyday” of the disability insurance business, physicians were the most highly sought-after market by the disability insurance companies. Benefit periods were extended, contract language was liberalized, and additional benefits, such as residual benefits and COLA, were added in vying for market share. Unfortunately, as physician […]

If you thought Halloween was “scary”, then you haven’t been through the claims process with a disability insurance company. The Companies maintain an arsenal of well-paid, well-trained professionals and claims staff who sometimes seem like they are masquerading at a holiday costume ball. The reality is that the claims process may very well become the consummate “trick or treat” experience. Your goal in filing your claim is to obtain your disability insurance benefits, and as quickly as possible, during a period in your life when you are disabled, most vulnerable, and in financial need. Although this process will never be […]