Episode 32: Protecting Your Future – Disability & Life Insurance for Physicians with Dr. Stephanie Pearson

In this episode of The Purposeful MD Podcast, I talk with Dr. Stephanie Pearson, former OB-GYN and CEO of Pearson Ravitz, about the critical importance of disability and life insurance for physicians. 

After a career-ending injury, Dr. Pearson turned her experience into a mission—helping doctors avoid the same mistakes she made.

We cover:
✔️ Why your employer’s insurance might not be enough
✔️ Key policy details every physician should understand
✔️ How to truly protect yourself and your family

Connect with Dr. Pearson here -

https://pearsonravitz.com/

https://www.facebook.com/stephanie.pearson.790

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepearsonmd/

https://www.instagram.com/pearsonravitz/

Transcript

0:08

Welcome to the PurposefulMD Podcast. As a physician, you've sacrificed so much of your life for other people. Your patients, your family, your friends, and your colleagues. What would it feel like to spend time doing what you enjoy, and to live without guilt? I'm your host, Dr. Laura Suttin, a family physician, certified coach, and business owner. If you're a medical professional on a journey towards your most purposeful life, a life with more time and energy, and ultimately more joy, then this is the podcast for you. Welcome to the Purposeful MD podcast. I'm so excited to have my guest today, Dr. Stephanie Pearson, I'll read her bio. Um, so Dr. Pearson is a board certified OBGYN, and an educator for disability and life insurance for physicians. A resident of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, she grew up in Southern New Jersey, received her BS from Emory University, her MD from MCP Hahnemann, now Drexel University College of Medicine, and completed her residency at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. Since suffering a workplace injury that disabled her in the prime of her career, Stephanie has made it her mission to educate physician peers about the importance of protecting their ability to earn income and their families. In her role as CEO of Pearson Ravitz, an insurance advisory firm, she leads her team to fulfill her mission across all 50 states. Stephanie's talks empower physicians at all stages in their career to make confident and educated decisions regarding their insurance coverage. Stephanie, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. So I have heard you talk several times and, and followed you online for many years, and then finally got a chance to meet you in person, um, at a conference earlier this year in San Antonio. And we've stayed in touch, and stayed connected, and just so happy that you're in my world, so thanks for, for being here with us. I feel the same exact way. So thank you. So tell us your story. I've heard your story several times and tell us how you got to be where you are today. So I was called down to do a precipitous delivery. And, usually, those go pretty smoothly because babies kind of fall out and unfortunately my patient, who by the way was one of my favorites, I had delivered prior children of hers, and, and really this baby should have just fallen out, but as I mentioned it was precipitous so she didn't have an epidural. She was kind of climbing up the bed and, you know, after all, it's called labor, not a walk in the park. And so I have been known in the past to raise my voice and try to get mom's focus so that we can have a happy, healthy delivery. And I don't want anyone getting hurt. And I looked down as I was speaking with my patient and the baby's heart rate dropped into the 40s, but the head was right there. Like, I literally needed her to push maybe twice and we just couldn't get her to concentrate and so I had six nurses in the room with me, holding her legs, she was much bigger than I am. And as I put the vacuum on the baby's head to help guide it out, the first kick came straight to my brachial plexus. My left arm went numb. I started to cry. I thought I was doing myself a favor by turning my body. And unfortunately, as I got the widest part of the baby's abdomen out, I got kicked a second time, but it was across my shoulder. She actually knocked two of my nurses against the wall. And unbeknownst to all of us at the time, she ended three people's careers with one kick. Um, we forget how powerful we can be in times of stress. Uh, I felt a pop, I knew something was wrong, but I had to finish the delivery, so I did. And I got the baby on mommy's chest, and, or belly, and I left and called down one of my partners to help finish the delivery. Fast forward, um, my first orthopedist told me that I had torn, um, my labrum in my left shoulder, but, he used not a very nice word, um, and basically told me not to be this, that professional baseball pitchers pitched with torn labrums, so I should be able to do my job. So I did what all Type A women physicians do, and I put my head down, and I figured out how to compensate until I couldn't. Uh, eight months later, I was diagnosed with a frozen shoulder. My new orthopedist said, don't worry, we'll operate, I'll have you back to work in 12 weeks, and I woke up with him sitting at the end of my bed, and I knew something was not right, and he basically said it looked like a bomb went off in my shoulder, that he was not convinced that I would get full range of motion back and that I probably was finished as an OBGYN. I have considerable range of motion deficits and nerve damage in my left arm. I have not been cleared to do OB or operate, and it's been 11 years and three and a half months, not that I'm counting, um, but I learned a lot the hard way about contracts, about insurance, about so many things that I thought I did the right way. And it was really out of sheer ignorance that I made mistakes, and I felt that I had not been properly educated. I really wasn't advocated for and I felt not serviced either. When I called the guy who sold me my disability policy and life policy, he was basically golfing and like couldn't be bothered. And he said, it's between you and the carrier at this point. And he's not wrong, but there were things that he could have done to help prepare me, to help alleviate some of the stress, and that's part of what's driven my passion to do what I do now. Yeah. Oh, I, I'm, I've heard your story before. It's just as heartbreaking. I'm so sorry that that happened to you. That's, um, that's, yeah. It's just, um, one of those things that you think will never happen. And I know you say that, right? I mean, that's why you're in the business that you're in is. I mean, I, listen, I was one of those docs that had my ending planned, um, people laugh at me, but I really thought I would be like in my eighties operating and a nurse would lean over and be like, hey, Dr. P, maybe it's time. I would throw my last stitch because I didn't want to hurt the patient, and I would die of a massive MI in the OR, in my happy place, and like that's how I was going out. And life just had a different plan for me. And it was really bad in the beginning, um, but I would say probably took about three years, really for me to get out of my own way and come up with something that I was still passionate about, cause I tried other things, um, just to be productive, if for no other reason to get out of my house. Um, I have the utmost respect for stay at home parents. I'm just not meant to be one of them. My kids were four and six when I got hurt. And I used to say the old adage, I'd give my left arm to be home with my boys more. Turns out I gave my left arm to be home with my boys more. And after about six weeks, I wanted to kill everybody. And, you know, it was really a function of, I really needed to get out of the house to feel, productive. And I really do think stay at home parents have the hardest job in the world. Um, I'm glad that there are people out there that can do it. I just can't. I, I'm right there with you. I, I couldn't, I couldn't do it. Yeah. Yeah. Love my kids more than anything in the world. Yeah. I needed time away and talking to adults. Yes. What are some of the things that you tried? So the very first thing I did, I did some med mal defense work for OBGYNs, which I actually loved. Like, I got to use my OBGYN brain. I did research. I was helping the lawyers develop, you know, their strategy. I did not know at the time that in the state of Pennsylvania, you have to physically see and touch patients within the previous three years to be, quote, an expert witness. I still don't really understand that. I mean, I don't, my brain didn't change and I kept up with all of my CMEs and accreditations, but I timed out. And so that was short lived. And then someone had reached out to me for some biotech consulting. I did that for a little bit, but it just, didn't match who I was. I did some medical editing, which I enjoyed, but also was not, I wasn't passionate about it. It was just kind of going through the motions. to feel like I was doing something, right? Yeah. And at the same time, I was lecturing to area residency programs about my story, about the importance of disability insurance, about the importance of what makes up a good policy. And I was sending those people to someone else. And at some point, my husband was like, you know, you kind of know more about this than just about anyone I've ever spoken to. Go get licensed. And I honestly, Laura, I thought it was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. I was like, I'm not a salesperson. I'm a physician. What are you talking about? And he was like, but right, that, that's your it factor. You're not going in like, no offense, a sleazy salesperson. You're going in as Dr. Pearson and you're educating them, and you're completely above board. Yes. So I locked myself in my bedroom with my books and colored pens and markers, yes, I'm dating myself, I like paper and pencil, and took the test, and then cried in my car, because I didn't get an A. And my husband laughed at me and he said, has anyone ever asked you what your board scores were? And I was like, no, he's like, do you really think anyone's going to ask you what your insurance grade was that you just taught yourself in six weeks? And I was like, I get it. But I didn't get an A. You know, like, I feel like that personality, you can't take it away from us. Uh, and that's really how it all started. I mean, it was not my original intention. It was not part of my grand plan, but it has since become my baby, for lack of better phrasing, I mean, we started at our kitchen table, and we are now a company of 25 employees and have clients in all 50 States. And I love lecturing. I mean, that's my favorite part is to actually be in front of a group of people. And, really kind of get that information out that I wish I had 20 years ago. Yeah. I, I, I love that so much that you, you know, you've taken this horrific trauma that you experienced, and are still experiencing the aftereffects of to this day, and that you have really transformed it into this, amazing service for physicians and, and there's no one else out there like you. I don't know if people have told you that enough, but it's true. Um, there's really no one else out there that is doing what you're doing, and really advocating for physicians in this space that is not something we think about. The times that I've heard you speak, it's like, oh, when was the last time I looked at my policy and really understood what it says, what it means. Cause I think, I mean, and you experienced this to, insurance is like, okay, you sign up for the, whatever, when open enrollment comes around. Sign up for whatever you get, or maybe you have an extra policy that somebody sold you at some point, but I mean, just really understanding what it means and what it says. And even before that, when you said you were lecturing on, uh, to the, before you started your company, you were lecturing on looking at your disability policy and then referring to other people. How did you get started in that? Where was the switch from, okay, this happened to me to, okay, now I need to start educating people about it. That's a great question. Um, I don't remember the actual timeline. It was just something that I felt I needed to do, and it wasn't completely altruistic in the beginning, um, it helped me process what I went through, and the more I tell the story, the easier the story got, and I could frame myself in a different light. Um, and as far as who I was referring to, my current business partner, we have a weird small world connection. He helped me when my broker didn't. Um, turns out I grew up with his cousins, I've delivered some of their babies, he's been tailgating at the Eagles games with my brothers for years and years and years, and through a weird, you know, web, we got connected, and, you know, I am nothing if not incredibly loyal. And so once he helped me, I was like, okay, well, I'll send everybody to you, right? And then it was kind of like, wait a minute, I'm making him a lot of money and I'm not. And that was kind of where my husband came in and was like, okay, look, I know you want to live a life of service. And I know that this means a lot to you. But oh, by the way, it would be nice if you could get paid for what you're doing, instead of doing kind of his work for him. Um, and he was part of a different firm and then, you know, while I was starting my stuff at our house, we were still communicating and we were still kind of sharing clients and lectures and, and all of those things. And then once we realized that we were on to something, it was kind of time to, you know, shit or get off the pot. And that's when he decided to leave the company that he'd been with for over a decade to start with us. And so we are, we just turned seven in June of this year, which is kind of cool, cause we're not technically a startup anymore. You know, there's some crazy number about how many startups fail. And so it was a nice feather in our cap to be like, okay, like we're the real deal now. Yeah. It reminds me of a funny story. When we're on our third logo, I think, our first logo had a little red plus up in the corner. And we got a cease and desist, uh letter from the Red Cross. Interesting. And I was like, oh my God, the Red Cross knows about us! Like, how crazy! So like, instead of being horrified that we needed to rebrand, I was like giddy that like this big like conglomerate, and you know they have people that get paid a lot of money to make sure that nobody's infringing on trademarks. Right. But at the time, I thought it was the coolest thing that ever happened. Yeah. Yeah. The Red Cross found you. Yeah. Well, congrats on that, that milestone, that seven years. That's super cool. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. We're tryin, you know. And, and I love what you, you know, you, you turned your, your heart for service into a business. And so that, I mean, you're sustaining yourself and your family and also doing what you love, um, which is educating other people and, um, and helping to serve the physician community in the, in the best way. And so, and again, I, I, you know, really there is no one else like you. And so, um, I hope, yeah. You know, I'm trying, I, it was really important for me to find something that I felt like I was helping people. And, you know, I, I've. I, like I said, I loved doing the med mal stuff, and might still be doing it if I hadn't timed out. I almost feel fortunate or lucky that this kind of fell in my lap. Um, and beyond even helping our clients and this is going to sound trite, but I really like being able to give good people, good jobs. Um, you know, and as we've built our employee base, it's been really fun to kind of, watch everyone grow up with us because we started with a young group. And so, you know, we joke that we have a few PearsonRavitz babies now. And, you know, who have been born during this time. A couple people get married and, and so it's, I know the current thinking is that businesses shouldn't be like a family, they should be like a sports team, but it's nice to kind of feel like a family. Yeah. That's actually somewhat functional. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all the, the, not just the, like you said, not just the lives of your clients that you're impacting, but the lives of your team, and your employees, and their families. And yeah, that's huge. And so that, that gives me kind of the warm and fuzzies too. So what are a couple, maybe two or three, just when you start to talk to physicians about their insurance, what are some of the top tips that you give them or things that they should look for? So I usually, it it depends on where they are in their training, cause I have a very different conversation with residents and fellows than I do with attendings. Um, trying to keep it broad, I always like to start by explaining the difference between group employer benefits and private benefits. Um, there are three major issues with most group policies that people either don't know at all or they don't know fully. And so some of those things quickly, oftentimes, it's only covering a percentage of your base income, it's not your total income, which is a big deal for a lot of academic physicians who get paid in multiple buckets. It's a way for the hospital systems to save money. There's often a maximum benefit a month. So, you know, you're making a remarkable income, and all of a sudden you find out that your group benefit maxes out at 5,000 a month, that's not actually 50 or 60 percent of your income. It gets taxed if your employer is paying for it, which a lot of people don't realize. There's no, I shouldn't say there's no, most of the time it's employment dependent. So you leave a job, you're not taking it with you. And most importantly, there's no standardization of language and insurance, which is infuriating. And so companies can use the same phrasing and define it differently or different phrases and define it similarly. So, you know, you might hear, oh my God everything has to be an own occupation policy, and you look at this group benefit, and it says own occupation, but then you actually read the document, which, by the way, your employer doesn't have to give it to you, you have to ask for it, to your point, it's usually one line on your open enrollment packet, and you check a box, right, and you get this document and then it'll say that maybe it's own occupation for two years, and then it switches to any occupation. Or you read, you know, on Page 55, you know, it says that the way that they define own occupation is what's called held to the national economy or the local labor market. It's not specific to what one employee does at one employer site. And that may not sound like a big deal. But it's huge. It allows the carriers to throw this really wide net that says this is what you would, could, should be able to do based on your training, education, and skill set. And you know, within any field, if we put a hundred Docs up against the wall, they're not doing the same thing. They're not earning the same amount. You know, there's so many variations with how we practice and how we earn income. And to be told, you know, you should be able to do this, or we know that you can do this, right? And most of the group benefits will define total disability as the inability to do your job, and not be gainfully employed. So remember our conversation a few minutes ago about stay at home, parenting versus not. You don't want to have to worry about losing any or all of your benefit while you're trying to figure out how to be a productive member of society. So they're a lotta issues with these group policies and oftentimes, that's kind of the first thing people will say to me is, oh, I have it through work, I'm fine. And then I get to be in this really unenviable position of pointing out all of the weaknesses in the policy. So that's usually the first thing I try to go through and I go in more depth. And then, when we talk on the private side, it's almost the exact opposite, right? So the employer paid is taxable. If you're paying for it, it's tax free. Group is employment dependent. Private policy, it's yours. It's completely portable. You take it with you wherever you go. And then from a language standpoint, we're allowed to make it as strong as possible. So, you're actually being covered for what it is you do, day in and day out. The definition of total disability is you can't do your job regardless if you're gainfully employed in another occupation. They literally change one word and the entire meaning of the sentence changes, right? And then kind of going through the pieces of the puzzle that, that make up a quality policy and I go through what each of those mean, how they affect the policy. I'll go through kind of nuanced differences between the carriers. It is by no means a one size fits all endeavor. The policies vary, whether you're a girl or a boy, what state you live in, how old you are, you know what kind of doc you are, and then some other stuff, right? So, it's really an individual process, and I'm a firm believer that if you're being spoken to by somebody, and you feel like you're just, a number, right, or cog, then you're probably not getting the best service. And I actually will say there are other good people out there doing what I do, um, what we do, but, um, I always tell people trust your gut. You know, it's just sometimes our, admittedly, sometimes our guts don't really know, because we don't know what we don't know. Right. Yeah. And that's really been my aim is to try to get this information out, so that even if someone's not working with us, they're at least prepared, in a way that I wasn't, so that hopefully they don't get taken advantage of. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I, that's so beautiful about just raising awareness. Um, because like you said, a lot of us just, oh yeah, I've got my group policy and so I'm good. Um, so even just kind of starting to ask the questions about what does my group policy include? What does it not include? You know, how can I better cover myself and make sure I'm protected and my family's protected? I mean, even what your, your examples of, of ONOC within any given specialty as just, like you said, it's gonna vary wildly. Um, so yeah, I think highlighting that is so important. So important. Yeah. And I'll tell you, getting companies, hospital systems to give you the actual document is sometimes like pulling hair out. Yeah. Sometimes you've got to go back a couple of times because they don't, they either don't know what you're really asking for, or they don't understand it themselves. Right? And so a lot of times people ask, and they just get sent like a one page summary, which might give you the numbers, but it doesn't give you the fine details. And this is one of those where the fine details really make or break a policy. Yeah. Oh, that's heartbreaking, that's heartbreaking. I didn't have the right one. I mean, I tell people all the time, I thought I did the right thing. And I had a definition that I should not have purchased at the time in my life when I got it. And, I have to provide information every month to the carrier that's paying me my policy. Um, I'm glad I had it, we didn't have to sell our house, but it wasn't what I thought I bought, you know, and I didn't keep pace with my income. I was really underinsured when I got hurt, and I was way overinsured in life insurance. I had been somewhat taken advantage of, and I got a whole life policy when I was like 31, and I'm, I'm not as anti-permanent life insurance as I feel like a lot of the physician space is, um, but, I think there's a time and a place for it. And it's not when you're young, it's not when you're starting out, unless you are already independently wealthy, and need like tax help or estate planning help, which, I mean let's face it, how many of us at 30 are in that position? Right, not very many of us. Yeah. Not very many. Right. Yeah. And so, you know, that was, initially, I wasn't as passionate about the life insurance piece. I was really like laser focused on DI, and then I was talking to people and realizing that they didn't have life insurance. They also thought that they were covered through work and it kind of became a necessary add on. You know, that like, okay, we're having this conversation, let, let's do both. Yeah. Um, and then I really, as a company, we decided that, that would be our focus. So don't do PNC, and we don't do malpractice, and we don't like part of the, I joke, part of the reason I became an OBGYN was because I wanted to be able to specialize and know a lot about a little. And I kind of felt the same way when we entered the insurance space, like I don't want to be a jack of all trades and maybe this is a little egotistical, but I really wanted to be an expert. Yeah. And I did not feel like I had the bandwidth to be an expert in seven different insurance pieces. And that was really how we decided that this would be what we do and do it well. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome because you, you know, you know exactly what you need to know for your clients and to get them the best disability and life insurance. And then, you know, just, hey, I'm not an expert in that. I'm not gonna, I'm not an expert in auto or, you know, malpractice or any of that. It's, you know, very well what you do know, and I think that's really important. Well, how, so how are you doing now related to your injury? Um, I have chronic pain issues. I am acutely aware that I have a left shoulder and arm, um, which is sometimes funny. Like, I equate it to people getting earrings. Right, like when you first get your earrings, you're really aware that you have something in your ear and eventually you have to go like, you know, put your finger up to your ear to realize that you have an earring in that beginning feeling, I still have 11 years later, I am a human barometer. I can tell when there's a barometer shift. I can tell when it's gonna rain, I can tell when it's gonna snow. Uh, I go to physical therapy every Thursday morning at seven o'clock before I come to work. Um, I, on a good day, I can get about a hundred to a hundred and ten degrees of mobility of, yeah, mobility or motion. Um, so I am still dealing with it every day. Um, it's certainly gotten easier. Uh, you know, I have figured out adaptability for a lot of things, but there are still things that I can't do that people either take for granted or don't realize. Um, you know, simple things like when you're at a conference and people say, raise your hand if. Um, oddly I woke up. So the injury, I left medicine in 2013. In 2021, I woke up with a frozen right shoulder and they don't know if I have an underlying connective tissue disease or if it's years of overcompensation from my left one. So, you know, for me to raise my hand, it's literally just like from my elbow up. Mm-hmm'cause I can't raise my arm above, above my head. Right. Um, running, right? You'd be like, what do you mean you can't run? Your legs are fine. Think about the pounding that your shoulders take when you're running. I can't run. Right? So it's like weird things like that sometimes come up and people don't necessarily understand. Um, I still find myself at time having to defend myself, which is really frustrating, because I have an invisible disability. Um, I don't think, I don't know if invisible disability is the right term anymore. I think it's called something else now. I apologize that I'm not the most PC person, but um, I look normal until I go to raise my arms or I, you know, go to do things, like all of my bras snap in the front, because I don't have the dexterity to do em in the back, right? My hair is curly unless I go to the salon, because I don't have the dexterity or the strength to blow my hair out. Like, these are weird things that you don't think about. Yeah. That, like, I still am reminded every day that this happened. But at the same time, I don't consider myself a disabled human. I consider myself a disabled OBGYN. You know, there's a lot that I can still do, and I have a full life, and you know, would I like to be able to rock climb again? Yeah, I would love it, but not being able to rock climb, is not destroying my life. You know what I mean? Yeah. Is that maybe a really long answer to a short question? Yeah, no, it's perfect. I mean, I love the outlook and I, I imagine it took you some time to get there for sure is, you know, what, what can I do versus what can't I do? Yeah. And, you know, I say it all the time. I am better at living because of therapy and pharmacology and it took, extensive therapy to get me off the ledge. I mean, at one point I was suicidal. I wrote letters to my husband and my kids. I thought they were better off with me dead, than me alive and disabled, because I was so overinsured for life insurance. Um, depression is a finicky liar. Yeah. You know, um, it took a while to get out of that, that place, and I probably could not have done it if my husband was not as supportive as he was, and I, I do a lot of disabled physician outreach work, and I'm one of the lucky ones, I mean there are a lot of spouses who leave, because, quote, it's not what they signed up for, or they're not capable to give the care that they need to give. Um, I, I, I really don't know if I'd still be here if he wasn't as supportive as he was. And continues to be. Yeah. Well, I'm very glad that you're here. Well, thanks. Yes. And I, go ahead, I'm sorry?. But I am now. Yeah, me too. And yeah, getting, getting the help that you need is, is just, it's, you have to, we all have to, um, we all have to get the help that we need. Yeah. And you're doing great work on that front. So thank you. Well, it's so wonderful to have you. Thank you so much for doing this, for being our guest today and yeah, um, where can our listeners find you if they want to reach out to you and learn more? So our website is PearsonRavitz, um, P as in Paul, E A R S as in Sam, O N as in Nancy, R as in Roger, A as in Apple, V as in Victor, I, T as in Tom, Z as in Zebra.com. Uh, I am Stephanie Pearson on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Um, I honestly, I think I'm more accessible now than I was when I was a clinician. Yeah. Well, thank you, and we'll put all those links in our show notes too. So, thank you so much for being here. So good to talk to you. Thank you for having me and keep doing your good work. Thank you. While I am a physician, the information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your own healthcare provider before making any significant changes to your lifestyle or routine. By listening to this podcast, you are not creating a physician patient relationship. Thank you for listening to the Purposeful MD podcast. If you like what you hear, please rate and review the show. Please also visit my website, www.thepurposefulmd.com for free downloads or to discuss working with me as your coach.