Who are Medics’ Money?
Medics’ Money is a doctor led organisation that empowers doctors to make better financial decisions. Over 35,000 doctors subscribe to our free financial CPD for doctors and you can join them here by downloading our ebook.
We have also helped over 6000 doctors to find the best specialist medical accountants and independent financial advisers in the country, verified by us with reviews from doctors. Medics’ Money is run by Dr Tommy Perkins, GP, and Dr Ed Cantelo, who is not only a GP but also a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor with nine years’ experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP London.
Why we set up Medics’ Money
With some doctors’ wages falling by up to 30% in real terms over the last 10 years 1, combined with punitive pensions taxation for senior doctors, the rising cost of university and training for junior doctors; we decided to use our unique skillset to help mitigate the impact of declining incomes and rising tax bills on our colleagues. Our site is totally free to use and we empower our colleagues in several ways:
Firstly, we provide free financial CPD from the best specialist advisers in the country. Our blog covers everything from working out if you are affected by the NHS pensions tax issue to how to understand your payslip or get a mortgage. We also provide unique, free guides to make it as easy as possible to claim a tax rebate online for free. This can reduce the costs of, among other things, GMC and Royal College fees and examination expenses by up to 45%.
Secondly, we help you find a medical specialist accountant or independent financial adviser from our nationwide network of 50 specialist firms. They have been handpicked and verified by us and with reviews from doctors like you. They are experts in NHS pensions, GP finances, locum finances and a wide variety of taxation issues. We noticed non-specialist advisers were more likely to give our colleagues incorrect advice – doctors’ financial needs can be complex and this needs a specialist adviser such as those on Medics’ Money.
How we went about it
For some time, we had been helping our doctor colleagues with their finances. From this several themes emerged – as mentioned above, doctors found it difficult to know where to find the specialist advice they needed. As Ed is both a doctor and a Chartered Accountant, we were able to use this unique skillset to develop our free tax rebate guides (tested and refined extensively with the help of our colleagues) and verify the best specialist advisers in the country. We launched in January 2019 and since we’ve had over 1.9 million page views and over 35,000 doctors have downloaded our tax guide or subscribed to our blog and our network of advisers has grown from 3 to 50. Our network stretches from Scotland to Cornwall and is expanding all the time.
What have we learned?
If you have an idea that is innovative, free to use and helps doctors, then other doctors are extremely supportive. We don’t have a big budget and yet we have managed to build a product that is used by thousands of doctors every month which our colleagues tell us they really value. We have primarily grown by word of mouth, doctors telling other doctors. We are also grateful to the large organisations that have supported us. We would like to thank everyone who has told their colleagues about us or written to us with an idea to improve our site.
The future
“What medical school didn’t teach us about money” is a step by step guide for doctors to improve their finances.
We couldn’t have done any of this with the support of our colleagues. We are constantly expanding and improving what we offer doctors and looking to work with anyone who will help us in our mission to empower all our colleagues to make better financial decisions. If you think you can help us then please do get in touch.
A version of this article first appeared in the BMAs “The doctor” in November 2019 and subsequently on doctors.net.uk https://www.doctors.net.uk/eClient/dnuk/medics_money/getting_to_know/index.html
1 – https://www.bma.org.uk/media/2123/bma-ddrb-submission-2020.pdf
