Doctors & Consultants

I’m a Medical Professional, can a financial adviser help me?

For busy medical professionals, personal financial considerations often take a back seat to concerns about patients, workload and work-life balance.

But doctors ignore their own finances at their peril: the complexities of the HSE pension scheme and the peculiarities of employment in the health sector mean that those who leave their financial plans to chance could end up jeopardising their future comfort and paying more than they should to the taxman.

Getting expert financial advice can help you understand the changing pensions landscape for HSE employees, as well as assisting you to structure your finances in a tax-efficient way. It will also help you retire when you want, in the way you want, and achieve your other financial goals along the way.

Pension options

The personal finances of medical professionals are more complicated than ever.  Every medical professional’s situation is different. Depending on whether you are employed by a hospital, working as a partner in a GP practice or self-employed as a locum, you will face various challenges about how best to structure your savings and investments to achieve your goals.

There are many facets to consider. For example, if you do private work on top of your HSE practice, you will have to work out how to integrate this additional income as well as the impact of buying extra indemnity insurance.  Medical specialist financial advisers understand these complexities. It is their job to keep on top of the ever-changing list of regulations and to know the best ways to structure the finances of consultants, other hospital doctors and GPs in the most effective way.

 

A personalised plan

As well as unravelling the financial peculiarities involved in being a medical professional, specialist financial advisers can help you to achieve your own financial goals. These will vary widely depending on circumstances and your stage of life. You might be hoping to structure your investment portfolio to pay for school or university fees in the short or medium term. You might be planning for retirement and wondering how you can increase your pension to ensure you are not breaching limits. You may be concerned about protecting your family’s lifestyle in the event of unforeseen illness or death. Or you may have a worry that your family could be faced with a significant inheritance tax bill in future if you do not do something about it now.

Doctors’ finances are especially complex, so getting professional help is essential.

How we can help?

At Blackhall Financial Services, we’re committed to securing the financial futures of medical professionals including hospital doctors, Consultants, GPs and Locums. Blackhall Financial Services Consultants are trained to understand your profession and tailor their advice to your specific needs – throughout your lifetime.  As your financial advisers can deal with all the concerns referred to above. We are experts in wealth management and can advise on setting up trust funds where necessary to help dependents. 

We can also find competitive insurance policies to ensure that your family are protected in the event of any unexpected ill health or death.  Knowing what to do with your hard-earned finances to secure the best future for yourself and your family can often be confusing, presenting pitfalls for the most experienced of investor.

We can advise on a wide range of investment solutions, tailored to your personal goals, appetite for risk, and personal circumstances.

So, whether you’re looking to grow your money in the most tax efficient manner, fund your children’s education, or planning for a comfortable retirement, we can advise how investments could help you get there.

Because we have expertise in both the public and the private sector, we can give financial advice to Doctors /Consultants and medical professionals in relation to their different income streams (Public, Private and Self-Employed Income).


Superannuation Pension Scheme

Understanding the HSE Pension Scheme

The HSE Employee Superannuation Scheme is a statutory defined benefit pension scheme, with benefits payable under the Health Service Executive Employees Superannuation Scheme, 2010  In general, all employees in pensionable positions, recruited prior to 1 January 2013, are members of the HSE Employee Superannuation Scheme.  The HSE Pension Scheme provides a wide range of benefits to pensionable employees, including: 

  • Lump sum on retirement
  • Pension on retirement
  • Death-in-service gratuity
  • Spouses’ and Children’s pension
  • Ill-health retirement benefits

Membership of the Scheme includes compulsory membership of both 

  1. The Health Service Executive Employees Superannuation Scheme (“Main Scheme”); and 
  2. The Health Service Executive Spouses’ and Children’s Contributory Pension Scheme (“Spouses’ and Children’s Scheme”).

This Scheme is an integrated scheme (for members who are fully insured, i.e. Class A PRSI) This means that it is one that takes account of the State (Contributory) Pension in designing the overall pension package.  Both employers and employees make pay-related social insurance (PRSI) contributions and these in turn entitle scheme members to Social Welfare benefits.  Integration is used as a means of taking into account the benefits payable under the Social Welfare system to calculate:

  • The amount of occupational pension required so that the combined pension from both sources is at the level being aimed for in designing the scheme; and 
  • The level of contributions payable by the employee towards the cost of his or her occupational pension. If you are unsure as to whether or not you are fully insured (i.e. your applicable class of PRSI) please refer to your payslip which denotes your specific rate of PRSI.

Are You A Doctor In Need Of Financial Help?

We are experts at helping Doctors & Consultants financial lives, get in touch to begin your journey.

WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS HAVE TO SAY

We’ve helped a range of people and business owners accumulate, protect, and activate wealth over the years, and our customers can attest to the long term holistic relationship we build with them over the years.

Blackhall Financial Services have just saved my family a considerable amount of money and released a substantial cash lump sum at the same time. I asked the firm to review existing life insurance policies for myself and my husband to see if a reduction in our premium was possible. We now have adequeate if not better life insurance cover Not only are we paying a considerably lower monthly premium, but there was a cash build up in the policy, of which we had been unaware and which we were delighted to be able to access. The whole process took only a matter of days. The staff at Blackhall Financial Services are exceptionally knowledgeable whom I most heartily recommend`

Anon

I have absolute trust in the Directors & staff of Blackhall Financial Services I perceive that there is much knowledge & experience in the team and to date, I have never been let down or given bad advice. I feel that I can ask for advice to help me make a decision and when a decision has been made the team will either execute it fully or support me in my efforts to execute it. The personal relationship I have with team in Blackhall Financial Services is paramount to me. There is a lot of respect in our business dealings which has created good friendships and both of these make me feel that your firm will always offer me the right advice to ensure that I benefit, even though Blackhall might not benefit directly

Tony Nerney

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