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The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
I am more convinced than ever that nothing that traditional bar organizations are doing is going to move the needle on the sad stats on lawyer happiness ...
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Ben Glass on The White Coat Investor Podcast: WCI #427 – Dealing with a Disability Claim
In this special episode, we’re sharing Ben Glass’s recent interview on The White Coat Investor Podcast, where he unpacks what every physician and high-income professional needs to know about disability insurance—before a claim, during the process, and if it’s ever denied.
Ben covers:
- What makes a strong claim (and what insurers are really looking for)
- How to avoid common mistakes that derail benefits
- The truth about own-occupation policies
- How to plan strategically if you're facing a disabling diagnosis
🎧 Originally aired on The White Coat Investor Podcast
🔗 Listen to the original episode here: WCI #427 – Dealing With a Disability Claim
Huge thanks to WCI for the opportunity to bring this conversation to a broader audience.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
Hey everyone, this is Ben, and welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where each episode I'm usually interviewing somebody. But I've got a treat for you today. Recently I was interviewed on the White Coat Investor Podcast. The White Coat Investor Podcast really is the Dave Ramsey of the doctor world, the financial advisor to doctors, and actually our association with that podcast and that brand is our best referral source for long-term disability insurance consultations, just in terms of sheer numbers.
Speaker 1:So recently I was interviewed by the host host and I want you to listen to two things as we go through this. Number one there's a lot of valuable information about long-term disability insurance, so go check your own policies about claims and claims handling. But what I want you to do, since this is going on their podcast and they have broad distribution, is I want you to listen very carefully to how many trust clues I leave. And I want you to listen very carefully to how many trust clues I leave. And I want you to listen to all the different ways that I am enticing or teasing someone to reach out to me, to start a relationship or to make it easy for them to contact me. So again, this is fun.
Speaker 1:One of our second quarter rocks was to be on other people's financial podcasts, especially those talking to high income people. So I hope you enjoy this and I would be remiss if you haven't signed up for the Great Legal Marketing Summit. Go to glmsummitcom. Glmsummitcom and sign up now, before all of the seats are sold, before the hotel is sold out. All right, have fun with this one. All right, have fun with this one.
Speaker 2:Our guest today on the White Coat Investor Podcast is Ben Glass. He's a long-term disability attorney, disability insurance attorney, but what you should really know about Ben we just got done talking about is that he is still at an older age, refereeing soccer up through the high school level. In fact, he says he has been refereeing longer than most of the parents yelling at him have been alive. He's also the father of nine and has worked with a lot of you out there a lot of white coat investors that have had issues with disability insurance claims. So we thought we would get him on the podcast and talk with him about some of these issues and what you can do in advance and after you get disabled and when you're having issues and those sorts of concerns.
Speaker 2:You should be aware Ben is also a sponsor of the White Coat Investor right. He's on our recommended list for legal services. If you go there looking for help with disability insurance claims, he's there. So he does pay us money every year. You should be aware of that conflict of interest. But that's not exactly the reason we brought him on the podcast. The reason why is actually we thought this was a really important discussion to have and the funny part about it, you'll recall, Megan, our podcast producer, is married to somebody who has guest hosted this podcast before you recall, Tyler Scott, who has actually had some issues with the disability insurance claim, and so when Megan was lining this up, she was pleased to remember and recall and be reminded that, hey, we worked with Ben Glass when we were having issues with our claim. So it's a very personal connection. Today, Ben, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here, Thanks.
Speaker 1:Jim, you should know that your brand is huge because, as I said before the call, I talk to a lot of white coat investor tribe members, your fans, and the thing that I see across these discussions are they usually have bought good levels of insurance. So I just want to let you know that they are listening to you, they are reading your stuff, they're listening to your other sponsors who sell disability insurance to doctors, and so they come. Obviously, these are smart people. They usually come with some pretty good policies and we can talk about that today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there's a little bit of a selection bias, right. If they don't have any policy at all, they're probably not calling you. And in my experience that's actually the biggest issue with doctors and disability is people aren't just just aren't buying policies. They don't have the coverage even though they need it. So maybe we can sprinkle throughout this discussion. You know people can realize hey, these are real people we're talking about. They're like you, they thought they were invincible, they didn't think they'd ever be disabled. But the statistics on Americans in general is that one out of four people is going to deal with a disability before age 65. It's a pretty high percentage and I think maybe that's why these policies cost so much, because they actually get used.
Speaker 1:Well, so there's a couple things there, and one that we'll talk about is that and doctors.
Speaker 1:So a lot of the discussion I have with doctors is, if you are a surgeon, if you are a dentist, if you work with your hands, that there's a lot of things that wouldn't quote, unquote disable someone like me who sits at the desk and thinks all day long right, but when they buy the correct policy and it protects them in their own occupation, they may not be able to do what they were born to do, and they bought a policy that will pay them for their loss of income because of that. So the other reason people don't buy disability policies is that most employers are providing some form of group policies. What folks need to know is that group policies, because they're sold to everybody, are almost never as good as an individual policy. Individual policy is more expensive, of course, but the coverage is better, and so most everyone who's working for an organization is probably covered at some level by group policy. But again, most of the folks who come to me from White Coat Investor have purchased individual policies.
Speaker 2:But I'll bet most of the work you do is actually with people with group policies, isn't it?
Speaker 1:It is. So most of my work across the country is for people who people of, not just doctors, but anyone who has made application for benefits and been denied, so that's where I make most of my money. You've been denied benefits. I'm going to restore you to claim and I'm going to get paid if I'm successful in doing that. In the doctor world, the space that I'm occupying is really as pre-claim advisor space that I'm occupying is really as pre-claim advisor, and our goal, when we talk to a doctor who has been diagnosed typically with some sort of progressive disease process and maybe today they can still work, but they have questions about malpractice and ability to do the job is we'll have a discussion and our goal in those discussions, jim, is that you'll never need a lawyer, because I'm going to give you a good strategy. Either your claim is valid and here's the 17 steps you need to walk through, but they're pretty easy once I tell them to you or maybe call me in six or 12 or 18 months, but right now you probably don't have a claim, and so these are important conversations, because the last thing you want to do is like quit your job, not have an income but not have a valid claim.
Speaker 1:So it's fun talking to doctors because they have complicated lives. They are achievers. These are family discussions often because the spouse is often on the call as well. They may be business owners. So there's a complication there with how, like, with what do we count as income and how can I make money? And many of them, jim, can. Even with whatever the illness is that's causing their inability to, say, operate, they can go and do other things and so now, depending on their policy, what are the other things they can go and do and still make money without messing up their primary disability claim? So that's where I get involved and guys and gals like me, if we get involved early, give you a plan and hopefully you never need us after that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good advice. All right, before we get into, you know all this talk about. You know trying to get your claim paid and all these strategies. Let's talk for a minute. Let's say somebody walks up to you, it's a doc in your neighborhood just started residency thinking about buying disability insurance. What would you tell them? As far as disability insurance, you ought to go buy.
Speaker 1:So yes, good idea by individual coverage. The most important thing in a disability policy for me is the definition of disability and typically, jim, we talk about the definition of own occupation and there's different sort of levels of policies. The best policy will pay you if you can no longer do what you were born to do. So again, the surgeon example is fairly easy, because people can understand if I've got a vision issue or a tremor issue, I can't operate. The best policies will allow you to then change. Maybe I can teach something, maybe I can work for big pharma, but I can earn money in a different occupation and still get paid my full disability benefit if I've bought the right policy.
Speaker 1:So my advice would be you find a broker who's used to selling, who is experienced in selling to doctors and understands what it means to be a specialist, understands what it means to work in a practice and understand that you can oftentimes switch out of your main occupation to something else. And that broker and I don't sell any of this stuff, so no bias here. But that broker will have access to a lot of different policies. Typically I tell young professionals of all type go and buy the policy, because it's going to be the cheapest when you're healthy and young and over time you'll be able to increase the amount of coverage you're buying, and that's good. But if you wait until you have a diagnosis or you have some wonky blood test, then you either become uninsurable or it becomes a lot more expensive. So when you're healthy and when I was a young lawyer, it's kind of expensive. When you're young and maybe not making as much money and you've got some debt.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure, and it's interesting to look at the overall statistics in the country. If you look at people applying for disability and this is everybody, this isn't just people that we're going through you know white coat investor, you know approved agents who are particularly adept at getting doctor's coverage, but something like one out of five is declined. Doctors' coverage but something like one out of five is declined. And more than that, one out of four one out of three gets some sort of rating or exclusion on their policy, and so it's actually pretty common that people have trouble getting ideal coverage.
Speaker 2:It definitely is easier the younger you are and the fewer problems you have. And the interesting thing about it it's fascinating, right. This thing's only going to pay you until you're 65 or 67 most of the time, so it actually you're buying the possibility of more benefits when you're buying it younger. It's a better deal at age 30 than it is at age 50. And so I find it fascinating that it costs so much more at age 55 when they're only going to have to pay you for 10 years. But that's the way they're priced. The older you get, the more expensive this stuff is.
Speaker 1:Well, exactly right. And then you get to when I talk to guys. So I'm 67, you said older earlier, so I'm 67. And I had my policies from about, you know, 22 or 23 on. And recently because, because I've built financial wealth and I've got a business that I own, I could cancel my disability policies because they would only pay, you know, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow they would only pay me a max of two years.
Speaker 1:So those are the types of discussions that I have with people all the time. You know everything from should I buy to talking to group administrators too, jim, like what kind of policy will protect a group of eye doctors or a group of, you know, interventional radiologists and I have an interesting story there if you'd like to hear it at some point and so it helps HR or whoever's making the decision by the protection that they think that they need. Again, I refer them to the guys and gals selling the policies who are experienced with doctors. But I'm often surprised at how little the group administrator who's making the decision, how little thought they actually give to what policy to buy.
Speaker 2:They're relying on a broker. You just see what they do when they pick retirement plans. It's even worse.
Speaker 1:I'm sure. Yes, yes, I'm sure. And look, they have to wear a lot of hats. They have to be good. But that's why there's Uber specialists in every little financial niche we can think of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, all right. Well, let's talk a little bit about claims now. What makes for a strong claim?
Speaker 1:What the insurance company is looking for first of all, tim, is what do you do? And it's not just necessarily the label on what you call yourself. Right, I'm an MD, okay, that's very general. But no, I'm a cardiac surgeon. And because most of these policies, at least for the first two years of coverage, are shaped around, can you do the duties of the occupation, not to get too deep, but it's not necessarily how your job is actually performed at this particular practice, but how does the occupation perform? And so we shape the parameters there. What are the occupational duties? And then we look and say well, what's the diagnosis? Although the diagnosis doesn't tell us a lot about whether a claim will be paid or not claimed, you can have a very dire diagnosis and still work. So people with stage four cancer who are radiologists could still do their job right. But what we're looking for in the medical records is as much objective scientific evidence as we can that whatever the disease or the injury process is is preventing you from doing the policy, say, one or more of these occupational duties on a full-time basis. So that's the framework, and typically an insurance company will ask what do you do? Send us your billing records. We want to make sure if you say you're a surgeon, you actually are operating on people, things like that, and this is why.
Speaker 1:So one of the mistakes doctors make is they talk to their doctor friends about disability, and disability is a big, broad word. Talk to their doctor friends about disability, and disability is a big, broad word and hardly anyone can explain that. No, it's disability through the framework of what were you actually doing in your occupation or as your occupation at the time you developed your condition. That's the first step. The second is as much objective medical evidence as you possibly can get, and then financial records. So, particularly if you're a sole practitioner or you work in a small group, like your book's got to be clean, especially if you're the practice owner. So there's investigations there. And again, talking to someone experienced at the beginning can help a doctor shape their claims so that they're not just chasing everything financial records, billing records at a time when they're stressed out and trying to get treatment for whatever their condition is.
Speaker 2:So I mean, somebody comes in there First. Let's step back and just generally walk us through the process of making a claim. Yeah, what happens? You decide. You know what? I think I'm disabled. I got this disability insurance policy. What's the process over the next few weeks and months, and what?
Speaker 1:happens? Sure, exactly right. So if it's a group policy, you go to HR and you ask them for the claim forms and they'll often refer you to a website for you know, for Unum or New York Life or whoever the carrier is, same thing. If you have a broker, you call your broker and say I think I'm going to have to tap into this policy. Can you help me get the claim forms? You fill out claim forms that tell your story, give authorization to the insurance company to get your medical records, give authorization to the insurance company to talk to your employer if you are employed, so they can get the financial records, and you send that in. Our advice typically is you should have looked at all of your medical records first. It would be a mistake to not do that, to make sure your records say what you think they say. But whether you do or you don't, the insurance company is going to send out the authorization. It's going to get their records. They're going to do an interview, much like the interview I do of doctors, to find out your story.
Speaker 1:What do you do, how many hours do you work? Where do you work? What's going on in your life? Why can't you work? Things like that and then depending on the nature of the condition. So, unfortunately, I talked to a fair number of guys and gals who are relatively young with early onset Parkinson's I don't know if I'm just attracting them or what and they have a tremor and they are in one of the medical areas where they have to work with their hands. I talked to an emergency room physician just two days ago 35 years old, early onset Parkinson's tremor Can still do a lot of things but has to be careful and so sometimes, if it's quote obvious like that, the claim is just going to be approved and going to be paid.
Speaker 1:Other times, if the diagnosis is kind of a mystery and you got to go to two and three and four and five specialists to kind of nail it down, that can make it more challenging for the insurance adjuster to understand what's going on. What we're trying to do what a doctor who's making claim is trying to do is to make this claim an easy call for the insurance adjuster. So the more information you have, the more records you have, the more maybe narrative statement from your own healthcare team about why you can't operate or why you can't do whatever your medical specialty is, the easier it's going to be because that claims adjuster has got 100 files on her desk, let's say and you want to make yours easy, that's a process. If they pay the claim, then you start to get checks. You will typically have a follow-up, again, depending on the nature of the diagnosis. You may have monthly follow-up reports from your doctors, which can be kind of a pain in the butt for your doctor, right or no? Maybe if you've got a progressive disease and it's very clear, we're just going to check in with you every year.
Speaker 1:And if the claim is denied, jim, whether it's a group policy or an individual policy, typically well, if it's a group policy, for sure you'll have an appeal time, typically 180 days, to answer the objections of the insurance company. That's another time when it's good to have an experienced attorney do this, because the appeal becomes the whole case and there's virtually no rules on what you can put into an appeal. So we put a lot of stuff into our appeals and individual policies, although it's not required by any federal rule. Individual policies typically will give you an appeal time, a time for you and your doctors or your legal team, if you have a lawyer to answer the objections to have a look at the claim file and see all right, what's missing? Why didn't they pay my claim? Is there a way that I can make this more clear and obvious to the adjuster?
Speaker 2:Now, are the typical medical records just coming from your primary doc and maybe a specialist related to the condition a neurologist or an orthopedist or do you often need to see a doc that kind of specializes in evaluating you for disability?
Speaker 1:So you don't necessarily need to see a specialist and, again, so much of this depends on the nature of the disease process. However, most of my doctor clients have seen a specialist because that's your world and they have access to, most frequently, the right name, the right phone number and can get in to see specialists. So the more again we're looking at the evidence right, we're going to make this really clear and obvious to an insurance adjuster. So I would say, the more that you have specialists that are appropriate for the condition you have and these specialists support specialists don't have to say you are disabled because, again, that's defined by the policy. Specialist says and Jim, who's an emergency department physician, cannot do these types of procedures. And gee, this is risky not just to Jim but to his patient in the middle of the night in an ER. So that's the kind of information the adjuster is looking for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you don't need to find a doc that's doing you know half their practice is evaluating people. Yeah, but you don't need to find a doc that's doing you know half their practices is evaluating people for disability. You don't need that sort of a doctor.
Speaker 1:No, in fact I rarely see or have a client who is seeing that type of doctor because, again, these are folks. My clients are folks with legitimate claims who have already, by the time they've talked to me. They usually have worked their way up the chain of specialists for their condition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, you mentioned legitimate claims. I presume there's a fair number of people out there in the world that really don't have legitimate claims and are trying to get paid from their employers or their individual disability insurance policy. I mean, that's why they go through all this is they don't want to have to pay. You know people that are faking it for lack of a better term. What's your sense of how much of that is out there?
Speaker 1:So I don't think it's so much as people that are faking, I think it's more. It falls here. Someone is working in a bad, toxic work environment and they may have something going on, but the work environment makes the whole thing untenable. They get pissed off and want to quit and they want to tap into their policy. But these policies don't insure against a bad work environment. So that's why we really look at your occupation. So if you're an emergency department physician and you work for a crappy group in a crappy hospital and everybody's mean to you, that's not going to help. If you could just move across town and work for a better group.
Speaker 1:Are there people that have claims? Yes, most of the people that approach us. We look and we go oh, the records just aren't there. They don't understand. Their friends may have said you should talk to an attorney or you should apply for disability, but we know, based on our experience, that the claim's not going to be paid and a judge isn't going to overrule the claims person. So I think you know most people are not genuinely out to try to cheat an insurance company. They just don't know because, jim, nobody knows what's in their insurance policy until they have a claim and someone explains it to them, and so you know I'm there to help people ignore the well-meaning advice of friends who don't do this work and to give them real clarity on this is valid Go or you don't have a claim. You should go back to work or you should try to find a different way to make money.
Speaker 2:Ben, there are a lot of claims out there that, for lack of a better term, are in a bit of a gray area. It's a medical condition where there's not great objective evidence that there's something going on. The classic example is probably back pain. Lots of surgeons have back pain that keep them from operating more than an hour at a time. Many dentists have back pain later in their career and yet they go get an MRI and all they see is one or two little tiny herniated discs. And of course, there's lots of people out there with small herniated discs that don't have any back pain at all. Can you walk us through the process of these claims and how you look at them and what happens when you have a claim like this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, so, jim, migraines would fall into that category as well. So first let's accept these are more challenging claims. But now we're looking at the sort of the secondary evidence. So is the claimant seeing quality specialists? Do those specialist records reflect that they believe that their assessment of the patient's pain is true? So do they believe in the patient. Patient's pain is true, so do they believe in the patient. Are we trying standardized therapies, including legit standardized medications, without success? So we've been successful Migraine.
Speaker 1:It's impossible to see to quote see a migraine. But someone who's seeing again moving up the food chain of specialists and seeing uber specialists and trying to get better, trying to make treatments, without success. That all becomes evidence that the insurance company is supposed to take into account the entire picture. Now that having been said, insurance company doctors will say what you just said no radiologic evidence. Sometimes they'll have surveillance and if the surveillance they get on you contradicts what you say about your abilities, that's hard.
Speaker 1:But if you're a high-performing dentist and you've got a track record of X hours or X number of procedures in a week and that's also diminishing in conjunction with the medical records, that's all evidence that we are trying to tie together to say yes, this is very legitimate, even if we don't have radiologic evidence.
Speaker 1:That having all been said, the thing that your listeners need to know is some policies will limit that We'll accept the claim, but if you don't have a proven radiculopathy, we're only going to play the claim for two years, and they may have a list of conditions, such as fibromyalgia, migraine, headache, chronic pain, that they'll say we accept that this is real, but we're not going to pay it for more than two years. What people need to know is that these types of policies exist. That's mainly a group policy that we see, and so, again, the higher up the food chain you go in terms of buying a quality policy, the less likely, in my experience today, is that you are going to get big pushback. I think, by and large, these insurance companies try to treat high-wage earning professionals the right way.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. You get what you pay for. A lot with disability insurance, don't you?
Speaker 1:I think that's true.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Now you mentioned something you mentioned surveillance. How often is an insurance company hiring a spy, hiring a private investigator to follow you around, to figure out if you're really disabled? Is this common? I mean, how often does this happen?
Speaker 1:So that part happens I see less and less frequently. But why they don't have to? They go just to go on social media. They go and look at your posts. Or you think your social media is private, but your friends are posting oh here's Jim at our ski trip, right, and tagging you in it. So that's where the problem is.
Speaker 1:And again, we're not saying I'm not saying you need to close down your entire life and secure it, but I think you have to be very accurate when you're saying to an insurance company these are activities I cannot do, or I cannot do more than an hour. You have to be honest about that, because they will find you that one time and I'll tell you a trick that they use they'll find you that one time you're out doing something for three hours that you said you could only do for one. Here's how they get you. Jim, when's your next visit with your surgeon? Oh, it's July 7th at 11 am.
Speaker 1:Okay, some likelihood if you have that type of claim, that there's going to be a guy waiting down the street who's going to follow you, going to see what you do before you visit the surgeon, what you do after you visit the surgeon, going to see what you do before you visit the surgeon. What you do after you visit the surgeon, you know do you stop at the grocery store and you say you can't carry a certain weight and you're doing grocery shopping. So you've helped them by telling them when you will be outside of the house Again. I don't want people to be paranoid about living their lives, but the main strategy is you have to be brutally honest in describing your condition and your limitations to the insurance company, because one way or another, if you're not being honest, they will find it.
Speaker 2:You know, when people hear stories like this, they hear that you know your specialty exists to help people get their claims that you're actually needed. Sometimes, I suspect the hassle factor of knowing they may have to fight to get their benefits in some situations may cause them to wonder if they should bother buying the insurance at all. Should that potential hassle affect their approach to the initial decision to buy disability insurance any differently?
Speaker 1:I mean should you buy a product? Yeah, look, I bought my product for myself at 22 or so. I paid it and never had to make a claim, thank goodness, right for 40 years. But I had that security as I was growing my family and growing my business. So you know, here's what I tell people. Jim, you get, you get run over by a truck. You don't need me, that's easy.
Speaker 1:They're going to pay the claim and if you're driving to work, you know there's a decent risk there that something will happen that may put you out. Maybe it doesn't put you out permanently, but maybe it puts you out for six months or a year. So I think it's worth it. Again, I don't sell the policies I recommend to my young lawyers who work for me and young professionals that I get to hang out with from time to time. I think it's one of the insurance policies that's worth it. Again, most people are going to have some coverage under the group policy from their employer. This is just you know. Look at the picture of your family on your desk and say what happens if my stream of income goes completely away. That's the risk you're protecting.
Speaker 1:The insurance companies will tell you that most claims are paid. That's true, but most claims are not for a long period of time. I broke my ankle. I can't operate for six months, I'm pregnant and I can't be around for six or nine or 12 months. So they pay their claims. That goes into their stats I'm a proponent of. In America, insurance is relatively inexpensive and most people just don't realize how important it is. Auto homeowners, malpractice, it's just. It's just one of the things we live with. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now you've alluded to a few mistakes that doctors make when they're dealing with the claims process. You know lying, for example, or not. You know not seeing. You know multiple specialists that are actually documenting what you can't do or putting things on social media that contradict what you're saying you can't do telling the insurance company where you're going to be. What other mistakes do you see people make with the claims process in general? Where are they screwing up?
Speaker 1:So I talked to an OBGYN a few years back and he had a progressive neurological condition which took him out of the labor and delivery and out of the operating room and he became an office-based physician and his income diminished by half. His friends told him you don't have a disability claim, you make too much money. So he took advice from non-lawyer friends where actually he did have a claim. He had a claim for partial disability, or what they call residual disability, and he was entitled to benefits at that time, but he didn't claim it, so he left money on the table. Now the problem became as his condition progressed. Now his occupation is not GYN surgeon in the L&D right, it's office-based, and so now his claim becomes harder. So a mistake and I see this. A well-meaning treating physician will begin to describe what disability is or isn't to his patient. They're not trained in this. The other thing that doctors do which I find, if I can say to you, hilarious is they go to their friends for treatment. They don't charge each other and they don't make records. Sometimes that makes my job a lot harder. All right, so when you have something you can go to your friend, but make sure you're paying them and they're keeping records. You know the other thing I see.
Speaker 1:The story I tell which is kind of scary is I represented an interventional radiologist at a major university medical center and this guy is one of the godfathers of he's more my age cohort, the godfathers of interventional radiology and Jim. He was getting some wonky blood results from being in the IR suite and exposed to radiation for 20, 25 plus years and his doctor said you got to get out or else you may develop a cancer and that's a legitimate claim. Problem was his practice had bought a policy that defined own occupation as whatever your certification is and if you have no certification, it's MD. There were certifications in interventional radiology but he didn't have one because he got his training before the certification came into existence and he actually today trained the fellows to become certified. And so the insurance company said your board certification is general radiologist. You can still read x-rays. We're not paying the claim and we litigated that case and we lost the case.
Speaker 1:So the mistake there was not what the claimant did, but what HR did in buying a policy for a group of interventional radiologists and not understanding the policy and not thinking through. Oh, you know, we have some guys on the staff who don't have this newer certification, and we're buying a policy that only protects the newer doctors if something happens and they can't do IR. So those are the things I see you know.
Speaker 1:The other is making a claim. I mean honestly, you know, paying me, somebody like me, to look over your shoulder while you make the claim and to say, jim, I'm not sure that you checked the right box here, or I'm not sure your medical records really add up Like, let's not do this thing now. So they're making a claim too soon or without the right evidence, where if they stayed in treatment for six more months and, you know, saw the right specialist, their claim would be much better. So there's a couple of things that I see you know. The biggest one is just and I don't see this from doctors so much but over, just over dramatizing what their limitations are and it's not backed up by the medical records and often contradicted by surveillance.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what does it involve to hire an attorney like you? I mean, what's the range of what you know the clients you've had in the last year have paid in legal fees? You know, I assume, a few people, a fair number of people. You probably don't pay you anything because it's just a very quick discussion, but if they get an hour consultation with you, that's probably a relatively small amount. Other people are going to need you to do a lot. What's that kind of range of what they end up paying in legal fees?
Speaker 1:Most people don't need us to do a lot Again. If their claim has been denied and they're coming to me, they're going to pay me a contingent. They're only going to pay me if we win and they're going to pay me a third of their benefits if I'm able to win their benefits, no matter if I get you back on claim now or if I litigate your case and take you to the court of appeals. So we're going to evaluate that case. Obviously, we're only going to take cases that we believe that we can add value, because that's the only way we're going to get paid. We offer a flat fee consultation in advance. It's about $2,200. But what that involves is work with my team. But what that involves is work with my team.
Speaker 1:We're going to collect all your policies because typically guys and gals who are white coat investor tribe members have multiple policies. That's good. We're going to understand the policies. You're going to go and get your medical records and get them to us. We're going to look at those medical records before we get on a call and then my call with you is to set a strategy, and half the time I spend on that call, jim, is a life coaching call. It's like what are we going to do next? Because I can solve your legal problem. I can get you paid benefits if your claim is legit. But now I'm an entrepreneur. Let's figure out how we're going to go make money out in the world and then, for what they have paid, we stand behind them. So as they prepare their own claim forms and collect their records and communicate with the insurance companies, we're saying and I mean some lawyers will stay involved and charge every six minutes or something. We don't do that Like. We will look over your shoulders what we call it and bless your claim forms and as you have small little questions, it's all included in what we do. And then, jim, what I tell the doctors is if it gets to a point where I need to charge you, they'll never be surprised. I'll always say, hey, you sent over another big batch of medical records. It's gonna take me some time to look through it. Here's what it's gonna cost. So we're very transparent. Again, I make money in the denied claims and the contingent fee. Denied claims work, and we were able, because the regulations to do this work all over the country and I've got a great team that does that.
Speaker 1:The consults, though, with physicians are the interesting part of what I, what I'm doing in my career now, because I get to meet people who have achieved great things in their life. They've got this challenge, achieved great things in their life. They've got this challenge and I'm a good guy to talk to about. Okay, challenge yes, can't do anything about that. But now I can help motivate and inspire you what's next in your life and I provide some level of assurance.
Speaker 1:Typically, a spouse you know whether it's husband or wife or whatever like spouse is there and they are worried as well. What are we going to do? And so, having the spouse on the call and being able to meet, to go look, everything's gonna be okay. Here's the steps. We're gonna be good at the steps. It's not gonna cost an arm and a leg, because I want this to be the main call we ever have and I want you to not have a problem with the claim. I I want you to not have a problem with the claim. I just find that interesting work. Now I'm getting invited to these medical conferences to be able to talk about this to doctors and to practice administrators and just helping them. I like doing that work a lot. I've been blessed. I'm 42 years into my career. I'm doing, jim, some of the most interesting work I've ever done. I'm doing, jim, some of the most interesting work I've ever done, and it's cool to be a leader in this space of helping shape the law for consumers, including doctors.
Speaker 2:CEOs, entrepreneurs? Yeah, so I mean, potentially, if there's a denied claim and they got to hire somebody like you and they end up paying a third of their benefits, I mean I assume that's all the benefits they get from now until the policy stops paying? If that's the case, should they be getting a larger policy than they otherwise would, knowing that they might have to pay a third of it out to an attorney Insurance?
Speaker 1:companies aren't going to sell you policy more than about 60% of your income. They don't want to incentivize you, so there is a limit to how much disability insurance you can buy, but by and large, yes, I would not be cheap on how much of a monthly benefit I'm buying. Again, you'll find that insurance is a very competitive space, I think. But the more important question goes back to what we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, which is the quality of the definition of own occupation. That's really where it can make a significant financial difference to you and your family. The one last thing is and you probably know this is if you're paying the premium, the benefit is tax-free.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure, which definitely helps when it's only 60% of what you were making before. But if you were paying 40% of what you were making before in taxes, it's exactly the same. But I do tell people, get a big enough policy that it will pay for your living expenses, as well as to continue to save for retirement, because, as we know, these things typically don't pay longer than whichever one's longer two years or until you get to age 65 or 67. So you still need some retirement savings or you're going to be all on Social Security.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And if they, if they bought the right policy with the correct own occupation, remember, they may be able to collect that full benefit. But find something else to do, like all you guys are smart, right? So maybe there's consulting or expert witness or something over here that you can still do, even with whatever is keeping you out of medicine per se or patient care per se, and so that's why I say it's the quality of the definition of disability in the policy which I think is just as or more important than how many dollars are actually being paid as a benefit. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, our time is getting short, ben. What have we not talked about today that you feel like doctors ought to know about? The disability claims process, or getting disability insurance, or et cetera?
Speaker 1:or getting disability insurance or et cetera.
Speaker 1:I just think that if and you know, my offer is this if anybody who's listening to this would like me to look at their policy and just give them a general overview, I'm happy to do that.
Speaker 1:I wrote a book for doctors that tells some of these stories. If you want to reach out to me, I'm happy to send them a copy of the book. I mean, you know it may be hard to believe hearing this come from a lawyer, but I really want people to have a seamless experience, not need a claims denied lawyer, because, honestly, like there's enough of that work out there for sure, and I like building relationships. So you know, these doctors are all treating potentially my future patients, my future clients as well. And then the last thing I'll say about that is if you're insured under a group policy and you're not sure what it actually covers for you, I'm happy to look at that group policy too, because then you may want to go running to one of the white coat investor brokers and have a discussion about. You know, can I affordably buy individual coverage now and again you said this before the younger and healthier you are, the smarter that decision becomes yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, ben, thank you for the work you do. Thank you for reffing high school soccer. We thought attorneys were underappreciated. Referees certainly are underappreciated. It's a weird hobby. It's a weird hobby. We appreciate you coming on the podcast and educating us on these topics.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, thank you. Okay, back in the studio. So what you should know is that on the day that podcast was originally released, it generated two paid consults from doctors who were listening to it, who immediately reached out to us consulting consults from doctors who were listening to it who immediately reached out to us. So again, the principle the marketing principle here is that I went to a place where there just aren't any other lawyers. Now there's one in their brand who's followed me there, but we are miles ahead of that other law firm in terms of what we are doing with our placement at the White Code Investor website and with their properties and speaking for them, hopefully in the spring. And so it was immediate, immediate return on my time, and I think the object for you is to figure out where could you go that is out of where most lawyers are, and what kind of message could you deliver.
Speaker 1:Who else has your next client who's not in the legal space? Lawyers tend to stay very insular. We went outside, we've been working on this for a while and it is, in terms of numbers, our number one referral source. It sends us the most new clients every single year. Okay, great, thanks for listening. Leave a thumbs up or a comment or something, so we can get lots of traction with a continued traction with the Renegade Lawyer podcast, and we'll talk to you soon.
