Top all-time · #3219
The White Coat Investor
Company blog · whitecoatinvestor.comeconomicscareer
The White Coat Investor is the company blog at whitecoatinvestor.com, writing about economics and career. Since 2015, 24 different Hacker News readers have linked it 27 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (22) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link White Coat Investor articles on doctors' finances, such as insurance, HSAs, doctor pay and debt, usually as sources for personal finance points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 22 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Sick of feeling like you're being taken advantage of by the financial services industry just because you have a high income? Wondering what to do with your student loans or how to get a mortgage? Not sure how to buy disability insurance or how to invest your money? Here's a site written for doctors
Most-linked posts?
- /how-much-do-doctors-make/5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-07-01
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-09-21
- /debunking-the-myths-of-whole-life-insurance/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-09-24
What Hacker News says?
That applies to so few people though. Most people who buy it are just wasting money. In my experience, immigrants with few assets who don't know better are targeted by immigrants of their own race (since they're presumed to be more trustworthy). https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/appropriate-uses-of-perman...
Comment linking /appropriate-uses-of-permanent-life-insurance/
on “Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes”Submitted Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance as a story · 175 points
HN discussionInsurance is for minimizing losses you can't afford. Term life insurance is good if you have dependents and their life would be negatively impacted by the loss of your income. There is very little profit and commission in term life insurance, so life insurance salesmen will push whole life. Whole life insurance is rarely necessary, and extremely expensive compared to the alternatives. See links below. https://www.wh…
Comment linking /debunking-the-myths-of-whole-life-insurance/
on “Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes”Submitted Giving Up a $250k Salary to Retire Early Is Hard as a story · 27 points
HN discussionIf you're healthy enough to swing a high-deductible health plan, consider maxing out a "stealth IRA" aka health savings account. With a $3,350 individual / $6,750 contribution limit, it's a great tax-advantaged account that can be treated just like a Traditional IRA. If you use it for medical costs, which you are likely to have in retirement, you get tax advantage on both ends. http://whitecoatinvestor.com/retiremen…
Comment linking /retirement-accounts/the-stealth-ira/
on “Investing for Geeks”Submitted The Economics of Going Home on Time as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSpouse of a third year resident here. My wife has volunteered at several primary care (i.e. generic doctor) clinics in Manhattan and nearby area (Queens, Astoria, Brooklyn and even in Boundbrook, NJ). These are all owned by the doctors. She worked in all kinds of operations of a clinic from billing, sending prescription, taking patient history, etc. Back-of-the-napkin calculation based on my wife's experience -- if…
Comment linking /how-much-do-doctors-make/
on “How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public”Submitted Downsides to Dying with Too Much Money as a story · 1 points
HN discussionHere is the list of programs for those interested. https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/not-so-common-debt-forgive...
Comment linking /not-so-common-debt-forgiveness/
on “New York medical school eliminates tuition after $1B gift”Great work! This might be unpopular among the HN crowd, but I think you can monetize this further by bundling this with an advising service. This idea of FIRE has been spreading beyond techies/Internet nerds and into other highly paid professionals like doctors. [0]. The main difference is that non-programmer professionals generally don't get a thrill out of min/max-ing financial projections. Such people might be wi…
Comment linking /
on “Show HN: I built a simulator for personal finance”Doctors don't seem to be driving the majority of the costs. After adjusting for inflation, doctors don't make much more than they did in 1984, yet the percentage of GDP spent on healthcare has almost doubled since then (and the real GDP has also doubled in that time). For example, see [1] where a general surgeon made an average of $118,689 in 1984 and a family practitioner $84,256. This would be $358k and $254k in 2…
Comment linking /how-much-do-doctors-make/
on “Robot dentist performs first human procedure”> That said, it is certainly not the case that US doctors average $1m/yr in salary. There are some doctors that make that much or more, and different specializations make different salaries on average, but the overall average is more like $225k/yr. The average primary care physician makes $265K/year. Among specialists, the average is $382K/year. Not sure where where you're getting an "overall average" of $225K. In f…
Comment linking /how-much-do-doctors-make/
on “Car insurance in America is too cheap”I just learned about Direct Primary Care a few weeks ago from the White Coat Investor podcast [1]. The doctor interviewed does a direct pass-through on lab expenses. MRI's get done for hundreds (not thousands or tens of thousands) of dollars, basic blood work costs single dollars (and I think one common test was under $1). It's a whole different world of medical care in which your medical insurance becomes more like…
Comment linking /what-is-direct-primary-care-podcast-165/
on “US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients”Learn statistics, or talk to more doctors. https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/how-much-do-doctors-make/
Comment linking /how-much-do-doctors-make/
on “More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages”I realize this headline is meant to be inflammatory (look at those entitled people who get it all!), but this practice already exists for medical doctors: http://whitecoatinvestor.com/personal-finance/the-doctor-mor... Basically: "you're about to have a high income and—as a class—have a very low default rate. We'll let you put 0% down and not count your student debt against you". Usually before you get your first pa…
Comment linking /personal-finance/the-doctor-mortgage-loan/
on “Some Silicon Valley Tech Workers Get Home Loans with No Money Down”Lots of reading (books, blogs, etc.) has been helpful for me the past few years and it seems like I pickup new things all the time. A few things I use/reference: - YNAB (You Need A Budget) - budgeting/tracking app, plus lots of great content on how to use the software and generally manage your budget/expenses - /r/personalfinance subreddit - checkout their wiki [1] and flowchart [2] in particular for a really helpfu…
Comment linking /new-to-the-blog-start-here/
on “Ask HN: How do you manage your financials?”There's no one-size-fits-all type of advice because everyone's situation is very different. There are some great resources available online to get started though. This one [1] is for physicians but could also apply to everyone. The bogleheads [2] and their wiki page are also great resources for these topics. [1] http://whitecoatinvestor.com/the-proper-ratio-for-retirement... [2] https://www.bogleheads.org/
Comment linking /the-proper-ratio-for-retirement-tax-diversification/
on “Americans Are Putting Billions More Than Usual in Their 401(k)s”Seems like yes? https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/expense-ratios/
Comment linking /expense-ratios/
on “What Caused the Dinosaur Extinction?”Bogleheads is probably the best resource in my opinion. It's easy to read and very accessible to everyone. If you want a few more resources you can try - https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/ - targeted mostly at doctors and other high earners but can be useful - https://old.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ - subreddit about achieving financial independence and retiring early. It's a bit boring but the financial adv…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are your instruments for investment?”The "Catch" with whole life is the expected returns are lower than term life coupled with clean, insurance free investment. You also have a entire industry of sales people spreading misinformation about how the policies work: https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/debunking-the-myths-of-who...
Comment linking /debunking-the-myths-of-whole-life-insurance/
on “Ask HN: Why not have reverse life insurance that rewards longevity?”On some quick googling the mean debt at graduation from medical school is about 250,000 (this includes undergrad). This number is trending upward. There is also the opportunity cost of 4 years additional school and 3-7 years of getting paid 60-70k. Most doctors end up making between 265k and 382k per year, this varies wildly (from pediatrician on the low end to brain surgeon on the high end). Here is a good article:…
Comment linking /how-much-do-doctors-make/
on “Why doctors in America earn so much”Wow, thanks so much for taking so much time to leave such detailed feedback! I'd love to chat more in real-time if you're willing. You can reach me at my hn username at livefortunately.com to schedule some time that works for you if you're interested. Some selected responses. | 1. Help estimate life insurance needs for folks. Yes! This is completely on vision and part of why we founded the company (my co-founder is…
Comment linking /layering-life-insurance-policies/
on “Show HN: Fortunately – Understand the tradeoffs of financial decisions”https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/social-security-is-not-goi...
Comment linking /social-security-is-not-going-away/
on “America vs. Singapore: You Can't Save Your Way Out of Economic Shocks”"None of my friends who are outside of med school believes in the stress and depression as they only see the high salaries and good life doctors are living but doesn't see the stress until you enter the field," Grass is always greener on the other side. I will encourage you to explore more your options between medicine and IT and make sure you are not afflicted with same syndrome as your friends. Medical profession…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Need a career advice”That number is higher now. $351,000 for physicians across the board, $382,000+ for specialists. Source: https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/how-much-do-doctors-make/ (actually a MedScape survey, but that requires a login, so I found this which summarizes the survey).
Comment linking /how-much-do-doctors-make/
on “Launch HN: Certainly Health (YC S23) – Book doctors without surprise bills”"Residents can work up to an average of 80 hours per week. The aforementioned general surgeons work an average of 60.78 hours. Meanwhile, orthopedic surgeons work an average of 54.17 hours per week, and plastic surgeons operate just under 50 hours per week." https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/how-many-hours-do-doctors-... .
Comment linking /how-many-hours-do-doctors-work/
on “How a Four-Day Workweek Works, from the Companies Pulling It Off”
