Special Feature

With banks now tightening their lending criteria, your credit score takes on a lot more importance.

Predicting anything in today’s topsy-turvy markets is chancy at best, but if low mortgage rates can put some life back into the staggering real estate market, the stage may be set for a recovery.

There are no hard numbers for support, but it�s widely acknowledged that physicians, perhaps more than any other profession, are frequent victims of financial fraud. In fact, says Michael Spencer, president of M.R. Spencer Financial Services, a Flint, Michigan-based financial advisory firm, physicians as a group are popular targets.

Hard economic times are proving a two-edged sword for travelers as they face cutbacks in some areas and some enhanced perks in others.

In the wake of thousands of complaints from doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and health insurers, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has pushed back the deadline for changing from the current ICD-9 medical coding system to the new ICD-10 codes.

For the past 5,000 years, gold has been synonymous with wealth, security, and power. Wars have been fought over it, civilizations conquered for it, and history shaped by it.

One of President Obama�s top priorities during the first days of his administration will be to overhaul the healthcare system. The administration�s plans include an ambitious system to computerize the health records of millions of Americans and to link doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and pharmacies with information about diagnosis and treatment.

The bear market has offered peddlers of variable annuities an ideal environment to sell their products. Over the past several months, who wouldn’t have wanted an investment that guarantees that you can’t lose?

In today�s tough economy, physicians are facing an increasing challenge. Self-pay, or that portion of the healthcare dollar that is a patient�s responsibility, is becoming a larger and larger percentage of the physician�s practice every day.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, disability insurance companies aggressively marketed and sold policies known as "own-occupation" or "occupational" disability policies to physicians and other high-level professionals.

Back in 2001, Congress passed tax cuts that included a gradual phase-out of the estate tax, which at the time had an exemption of $1 million and imposed a 55% levy on any amount over that.

The global stock markets have taken a beating; last year was one of their worst years ever. Not the worst, but pretty bad. The equity investment results for last year were so discouraging that you might be forgiven for wondering, "What am I doing here?"

As job cuts mount and downsizing spreads, one of the few areas that have been spared is healthcare. Despite a loss of 2.6 million jobs from the overall economy last year, the healthcare sector managed to add 419,000 jobs in 2008.

So, you want to fly solo? For physicians who are trying to maintain a solo practice, the challenges are daunting. According to a November 2008 report from The Physician�s Foundation, nearly half of the physicians surveyed�or approximately 150,000 practicing doctors�say that over the next 3 years, they plan to reduce the number of patients they see or quit the practice of medicine outright.

In response to an ongoing investigation into an allegedly flawed reimbursement calculation system, both UnitedHealth and Aetna have agreed to pay millions of dollars toward the development of a new reimbursement database.

In an effort to pull in new prescription drug customers, especially those without drug insurance, several big-name drug retailers are locked in a battle over who can provide the biggest discounts.

Every year, as the calendar turns from December to January, some income tax rules change, and 2009 is no exception. In addition to the run-of-the-mill changes, like adjustments to the tax brackets, there are some one-time updates. Also, major efforts to cut taxes are likely to come out of Washington once the new administration takes over.

Steeply lower mortgage rates are one of the few welcome side effects of the implosion in the credit markets. According to Bankrate.com, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is now just over 5%, down about 1.5% from last summer.

At a time when a sluggish economy continues to spiral downward, retail medical clinics are on the rise. According to Merchant Medicine, the number of clinics had risen to 1,135 by late 2008�a five-fold increase over the course of the last 2 years.

Have you seen Captain Blood, the classic 1935 pirate movie starring Errol Flynn? Flynn played a wrongly accused Irish doctor, Peter Blood, sentenced to slavery in the beautiful Caribbean.

The good news for ski resort operators is that there’s plenty of snow around in most ski areas. The bad news is that the faltering economy is keeping many skiers at home.

Recognizing that many taxpayers are facing economic hardships, the IRS recently announced that it would be more lenient to those who are unable to pay what they owe. In making the announcement, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman made it clear that, while the agency recognized that taxpayers may be in need of some flexibility with regard to their tax payments, it also intended to enforce the tax laws.

�The physician must respect the dignity of all persons and respect their uniqueness.� Those words are from the American College of Physicians Ethics Manual, and should serve as a guiding light for all physicians. But according to recent surveys, all too often those words ring hollow.

If you had been listening to John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, before the bear market sent stock prices into the deep freeze, your portfolio might not be unscathed right now, but its wounds would most likely be fewer and less severe.

General George Patton once said, "If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking." That seems to be what is happening today as the stock market careens higher like a mad roller coaster only to suddenly drop in a steep descent.

As GMAC, Chrysler Financial, and FordCredit, the lending arms of the Big Three auto makers, tighten credit standards, auto sales have plunged to their lowest level in almost 25 years.

If you buy a car made by GM, Ford, or Chrysler, and the auto maker then goes bankrupt, what happens to the warranty?

By almost any measure, 2008 will go down as one of the worst years in Wall Street history. Just about every investment category suffered big-time losses, led by emerging markets and followed closely by domestic equities.

How many new lawsuits do you think are filed in the United States each year? 1,800? 18,000? 1.8 million? Would you be surprised to hear that all of these choices are wrong? Nearly 18 million new civil lawsuits will be filed this year in the state and federal court systems. That equates to about 1 every 15 seconds.

How would you like to make your grandchildren rich? Would it put a smile on your face to ensure that your great-grandchildren never have to worry about money? It’s easier than you might think if you have an Individual Retirement Account.