Lifestyle

Some colleges will enroll your child in their sponsored health plan automatically, even if your child is covered under your policy. Others insist that the student have outside coverage. Consumer consultants advise parents to research their options.

A recent study, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, found that a single tweet can spread incorrect information to more than a million people.

A rule of thumb: your financial advisor should construct a portfolio that's better diversified than one you could have created yourself. However, many advisors don't, in large part because their investment knowledge is largely limited to stocks and bonds.

Spam isn't just erectile dysfunction e-mails in your junk folder. Now you've got to watch out for spear phishing, where more experienced criminals will use information about you found online to craft a targeted e-mail designed to fool you into giving up personal information.

For docs to consider changing their career was unthinkable just a few short years ago, but gender equality, increasing cultural and racial diversity, the recent switch from majority private practice to majority salaried practices, and a sea change in attitudes and expectations among young docs have put many old assumptions about doctors' careers to the question.

If an insurance agent offers you a can't-lose, tax-deferred investment, it ought to be a slam dunk, right? Of course not! It never is. For one thing, agents receive rich commissions for selling these, so you must be wary of high-pressure salesmanship.

Still being in travel mode and having engaged in several recent email and phone conversations about ways to practice medicine that involve travel, I'm devoting this blog post to seven ideas for indulging your love of medicine and travel. These ideas range from volunteer work to paid entrepreneurial ventures for physicians.

500 miles south of Paris can be found an unpretentious market town of 50,000 named Chalon-sur-Saone, famous among photographers as the birthplace of their passion's inventor: Joseph Nicephore Niepce.

Travelers caught in Icelandic volcano delays may have been wishing they purchased a travel insurance policy, but hindsight is 20/20. Running out and purchasing insurance now might not make sense in your situation.

Russ had been the low bidder on a government job which he finished satisfactorily, on time, for the agreed-upon price. Things went unusually well, so he made more profit than expected. The government decided that he had made too much, and not only demanded a refund but also decided to audit all his private contracts.

As the Clash once asked, "Should I stay or should I go?" With requests for attendance seemingly arriving every day via traditional or email, how can a physician determine which ones are worth attending?

I'm commonly informed by doctors starting up new businesses that they are on the lookout for venture capital and, oh by the way, can I point them in the direction of some willing venture capitalists who'll be interested in their idea?

If you talk less than 100 minutes a month, for example, a prepaid plan, which can cost as little as $10 a month, is almost a no-brainer. Anything over that level could cost more than a contract, since the higher per-minute charges on a prepaid phone add up fast.

Good news doctors! Although the current Congress is content to fritter away your future income with so-called healthcare reform, a plucky Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada has offered a sensible (and tasty) alternative to the usual fee for service: poultry!

Fewer than 1% of flights have "surface delays" of more than three hours, but upwards of 200,000 passengers are affected by such delays each year. Unfortunately, new rules preventing this nightmare were designed with a major loophole.

Don't fool yourself. If an attorney has the opportunity to attack unprotected assets in order to get a client paid in full, they will do so. Further, if they didn't pursue those assets, the attorney would then be liable for malpractice to the client.

Do you think that the plaintiff who wins a $4 million judgment would simply settle for $2 million of insurance coverage when they could put a lien on the $1.5 million of equity in your home in two hours at a cost of $500?

New research suggests that market motion is far more important than either asset allocation or active portfolio management, accounting for 75% of all market returns (or lack thereof).

Although payment plans vary from school to school, many parents will get their first college tuition bill in the mail soon. Right now, interest rates on a HELOC tend to be lower than on other loans, and it can be a much more flexible way to pay college bills.

While it doesn't have a sexy name like "Portable Alpha" or "Synthetic Hedge Fund," the "investment" turtle wins the serious money race every time.

Many physicians I've spoken to recently have reported drops in patient attendance, a fall-off in clientele, and declining incomes. My trip to Africa, however, showed me that, as bad as we think we have it, there are those for whom a dry bed in a rain storm is a blessing.

Going without a will is a really bad idea, and yet, based on several different surverys, it is highly likely that if you chose a doctor at random, he or she wouldn't have one. There's really no excuse as a simple will is cheap.

This New York City MD practices with colleagues who run their patients through an assembly line of unnecessary tests and procedures out of greed and worse. He hates what he sees, but is unsure what he can do about it.

Still fretting over how to maintain sufficient eye contact during a patient visit with your new EMR? Dr. Pullen has been using one in the exam room since 1997 and says though it is different, it doesn't have to be less satisfying.

You can spend $100,000 on an MBA to learn how to become an entrepreneur, or you can diligently tap into the wealth of resources that the Internet provides for no more than the cost of your time.

One of the more amusing quotes to come out of the healthcare reform debate was this Nancy Pelosi classic, "[Congress has] to pass this bill so that you can find out what's in it." How refreshing and revealing the unvarnished truth can be.

Facebook's traffic and usage is second only to Google and it would be the 4th largest country in the world, if it were a country! How can you capitalize on this giant monster's reach?

The sell-off today and last Tuesday deserves close attention. We believe for a number of reasons that we are at a "Stop Look and Listen" point in the market. What I mean by this is that we are at a higher probability point where the market will begin to pull back.