Hi, I'm Billy Gwaltney and this is the CYA podcast. This show is for the physician who understands the importance of protecting everything you've worked so hard to achieve. Each week I'll bring you tips and advice to help you cut through the clutter and misinformation and show you exactly what you need to preserve your income and way of life. If you're ready to achieve the peace of mind that only financial security can bring let's get started.
(00:28): Welcome, did today's episode of the cover your assets podcast? And this is Billy, Gwaltney your host, and I'm really happy to be with you today. Today, we're going to cover the psychiatric benefit and a kind of an offshoot of that and a confusing term in that the insurance industry has adopted over the last, I don't know, several decades by calling the psychiatric benefit, the mental nervous benefit. And I'm hoping to provide some clarity regarding what can be a confusing term, and that we end up answering questions about, as people are considering coverage in that question centers around is the psychiatric benefit, what ultimately handles neurological disabilities. And so the answer, the short answer is no, at least in the top tier specialty contracts that I deal with and that we work with physicians across the country with the psychiatric benefit is a specific benefit in, in policies that covers disabilities related to addiction, say drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and depression and anxiety.
(01:37): If you have a disability and you this related to one or of those events or illnesses, and you have the psychiatric benefit on your policy, usually it's like a two year benefit or a five-year benefit, or perhaps for the full benefit period, age 65, 67 or 70 depends on the company. Then they would pay benefits for those types of disabilities. Unfortunately, as I mentioned over the last number of decades has been a long time since I've been around. For sure, starting back in the early nineties that the insurance industry has referred to the psychiatric benefit as the mental nervous benefit. The mental part of that mental nervous term is a little clearer, but the nervous part can make somebody nervous. If they're thinking it's, what does this have to do with the nervous system? I mean, it can be misunderstood. So the psychiatric benefit is if there is a limit to your policy on the psychiatric benefit, that limit is specific to psychiatric disabilities, neurological disabilities, things related to Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's or stroke, or maybe hitting your head in a car accident and the impacts of that headaches, those kinds of things.
(02:47): Those are specific to the medical definition. And so if you have a two-year psychiatric limitation on your policy and a benefit period for all other disabilities to age 65, and you have a stroke, or you have Alzheimer's or something related to your neurological disability, that would be covered for the full benefit period. The two year limitation in this example would only be for psychiatric disabilities. Now what's important is this is a general overview, please. Don't just take my word for this. Be sure to clarify this with whoever your, your broker is. Hopefully you're working with a specialist because the devil is in the details for this type of coverage. And these are questions that you want to answer up front, not, you know, after some event has happened. And at any time you communicate directly with an insurance company like their customer service department, or if you have questions and you call in to their 800 number the person you're speaking with may only know about this as a mental nervous benefit.
(03:46): And so they may have, it may have never crossed their mind or given any thought to how that term can be confusing because in the insurance world, when people say mental nervous benefit in the disability world, everybody, at least the people I've worked with know that they're referring to the psychiatric benefit. So I ended up clarifying that I've gotten contact even within the last week from underwriters and from people that at the top insurance companies referring to it as the mental nervous benefit. And I translate that to my clients. I don't call it that I call it the psychiatric benefit, unless it's a mistake. We, we, we always try to translate that to a term that makes more sense for people, because there can be a lot of confusion on that. And I don't want our clients thinking that there's some kind of limitation for, for things that there's no limit on, but again, a specialist can help you with this and help you make sure that this stays clear. I hope you found this helpful. Just wanted to the point of this podcast is to cover commonly asked questions and points of interest that people have as they're considering their coverage, feel free to text me or call me or reach out any time. My number is 7 0 4 2 7 0 2 3 7 6. And again, that's 7 0 4 2 7 0 2 3 7 6. We'd be happy to talk with you anytime until we meet again. This is Billy Gwaltney. Thank you as always for carving out.
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