A financial advisor who specializes in working with Physician Assistants can help you navigate student loan strategies, tax planning, and smart investing decisions throughout every stage of your PA career.
Are you a Physician Assistant? Or considering a career as a PA? A financial advisor who understands the distinct financial landscape of Physician Assistants — increasingly referred to as Physician Associates — can help you make smarter money moves at every stage of your career.
You’ll likely find dozens of financial advisors in your hometown well-suited to help you build a personalized plan toward your money goals. But it may be more difficult to find a financial advisor with the specialist knowledge and insights to help you optimize your compensation package, manage the student loan burden that often accompanies PA school, navigate contract negotiations, and make the most of the tax strategies and retirement planning opportunities available to Physician Associates.
Fortunately, many financial advisors now offer virtual services so you can meet online no matter where you practice, whether you’re working in a bustling emergency department in Boston, a family medicine clinic in Phoenix, or a surgical specialty group in Seattle. This means you can choose to hire a financial advisor who lives hundreds of miles away from your clinic or hospital if you believe their knowledge about financial planning for PAs could help you achieve better outcomes with your money.
Whether you’re a newly certified PA-C still paying down loans from your graduate program, a mid-career Physician Associate weighing a move into a higher-paying specialty, or a seasoned PA planning your path to retirement, partnering with an advisor who understands your profession can make a meaningful difference in your long-term financial well-being.
Financial Planning for Physician Assistants
💡 In the Q&A below, you’ll gain insights from financial advisors who work with Physician Assistants to help them make smart decisions to enjoy life more today while preparing for a comfortable retirement in the future.
🙋♀️ Do you have questions not answered below? Use the form on this page to submit your questions, and we’ll update this article with answers from the financial professionals and educators in the Wealthtender community. You can also contact the financial advisors featured in this article directly to set up an introductory call or ask your questions by email.
💸 Smart Money Insights for Physician Assistants
This page is organized into sections to help you quickly find the information you need and get answers to your questions:
- Q&A with Financial Advisors Specializing in Serving Physician Assistants
- Get Answers to Your Questions About Finances for Physician Assistants
- Browse Related Articles
Q&A: Financial Advisors Specializing in Serving Physician Assistants
Questions and Answers with Caleb Pepperday, CFP®, ChFC®
We asked Caleb Pepperday, a financial advisor based in Missoula, Montana who specializes in serving Physician Assistants nationwide, to answer questions useful to PAs interested in making smart money moves throughout their career and to prepare for a comfortable retirement.
Q: How do the services you offer to PAs distinguish your firm from other advisory firms?
Most financial advisory firms are built to serve a broad audience. They work with business owners, retirees, tech workers, physicians, and anyone else who walks through the door. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it means the advice tends to be general. I primarily work with Physician Assistants, their families, and a small number of other advanced practice providers. My wife is a PA. My brother is a physician. My sister-in-law is a nurse practitioner. I live in this world every day, and that shapes how I approach every financial plan I build.
Because I specialize, I already understand the details that a generalist advisor would need you to explain. I know how PA compensation structures work across different specialties and practice settings. I know what a typical PA benefits package looks like, including the gaps most PAs don’t realize they have. I know the career trajectory, the burnout timeline, the student loan burden, and the retirement plan options that come up over and over again. That means we spend less time on background and more time on strategy.
I’m also fee-only, which means I don’t sell insurance products, annuities, or investment products that pay me a commission. You pay me directly for advice, and that’s my only source of income from the relationship. I don’t have sales quotas or product minimums. My job is to give you the best advice I can and help you act on it. that.
Q: For PAs thinking about leaving their current employer to accept a job elsewhere, what actions do you suggest they take before resigning and shortly thereafter?
Caleb: Before you give notice, get your financial house in order on the benefits side. Review your current employer’s vesting schedule for retirement plan contributions. If you’re 80% vested and full vesting happens in four months, it might be worth staying a little longer to lock that in. Check your health insurance coverage and figure out when it ends. Knowing that timeline helps you avoid a gap in coverage, especially if you have a family.
Next, take a hard look at the new offer beyond the base salary. Compare the full picture: retirement plan match, health insurance premiums, disability coverage, CME reimbursement, malpractice insurance, PTO, and any signing bonuses or relocation stipends. I’ve seen PAs take what looked like a raise only to realize the new employer’s benefits were so much worse that they actually came out behind. If you’re not sure how to compare two offers side by side, that’s the kind of planning I help with.
After you’ve made the move, there are a few things to take care of quickly. Review your new benefits elections carefully, especially life and disability insurance, and make sure you’re not leaving coverage gaps. Decide what to do with your old employer’s retirement plan. A job change is one of the most financially significant events in a PA’s career, and taking a few hours to get these details right can save you a lot of headaches later.
Q: For PAs approaching retirement age, how do you recommend they prepare to make the transition from living off their salary to relying upon other sources of income?
Caleb: The first thing we do is build a clear picture of what retirement actually costs. Not a guess. An actual month-by-month breakdown of what you spend, what you’ll need to spend, and what changes when you stop working. Some expenses go down in retirement (commuting, work clothes, CME costs, maybe a mortgage, etc.). Others go up (healthcare is the big one, especially if you retire before 65 and need to bridge the gap to Medicare).
Once we know the spending target, we figure out where the income comes from and when. Social Security, retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, pensions (if you have one), rental income, and any other sources all have different tax treatments and timing considerations. The order in which you draw from these accounts matters a lot. Pulling too much from a traditional IRA early in retirement can push you into a higher tax bracket and increase your Medicare premiums. On the other hand, waiting too long can leave you with a massive required minimum distribution problem in your 70s. This is where a withdrawal strategy, mapped out year by year, makes a real difference and can save you serious money on your lifetime tax bill if done properly.
I also encourage PAs who are three to five years out from retirement to start practicing what it’s like to live like a retiree. Try living on your projected retirement budget for a few months while you’re still earning a paycheck. See what areas you struggle with the most. This dry run gives you confidence that the plan works and helps you spot problems while you still have time to fix them.
Q: Is there anything that comes up frequently in your initial meeting with PAs that surprises you?
Caleb: One that comes up a lot is embarrassment. PAs often feel ashamed that they make good money but don’t feel financially organized. They’ll say things like, “I should know this already” or “I feel dumb even asking.” That’s not something I take lightly. Financial literacy isn’t taught in PA school. There’s no reason anyone should feel bad about not knowing how a backdoor Roth IRA works or when to refinance their mortgage. My job is to meet people where they are, not judge them for not being financial experts on top of being medical professionals.
I’ll also say this: a lot of PAs come into the first meeting thinking their situation is a mess, and it turns out they’re actually doing better than they think. They’ve been saving in their 401(k) for years, they have some emergency savings, and they’ve been paying down their loans. They’re not starting from zero. They just need someone to look at the full picture and tell them, “Here’s where you are, here’s where you want to be, and here’s how we close that gap.” That moment of clarity is usually a big relief.
Q: Should PAs prioritize paying off student loans or investing more aggressively?
Caleb: I’ve answered this question dozens of times. It’s one of the most common questions that I get from PAs. Most PAs I see graduate with somewhere in the ballpark of $80,000 and $150,000 in student debt.
Here’s how I think about it.
Much depends on your loan type (federal versus private), your interest rate, and your projected earnings. Once we evaluate this, we can formulate a plan on whether or not it makes sense to contribute more to your savings, whether that be money you can access prior to retirement or focus more on your retirement savings. That match is free money, and the math on that is hard to beat.Beyond this, we look at things like whether you qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, what your marginal tax rate is, and whether Roth contributions make more sense right now given your income level. These aren’t one-size-fits-all decisions. A PA working at a nonprofit hospital has a very different playbook than one working at a private dermatology practice.
What I typically build for clients is a priority ladder. We figure out the order of operations which may look something like this: emergency fund, employer match, high-interest debt, Roth IRAs, additional loan paydown, taxable investing. The exact order changes based on your situation, but having that structure in place takes the guesswork out of where each paycheck should go. The goal isn’t to choose loans or investing. It’s to do both in the right proportions at the right time.
Get to Know Caleb Pepperday, Financial Advisor for Physician Assistants:
View Caleb’s profile page on Wealthtender or visit his website to learn more.
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About the Author
About the Author
Brian Thorp
Brian is CEO and founder of Wealthtender and Editor-in-Chief. He and his wife live in Austin, Texas. With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress. Learn More about Brian