After 25 Years as a Surgeon, He Had to Use His Disability Insurance | Dr. Alex Parikh

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What actually happens when a physician has disability insurance and needs to use it?

In this episode of Doctors Eyes Only®, Vestia Partner and CEO Lauren Oschman talks with Dr. Alex Parikh about his experience going from a practicing surgical oncologist to filing an own-occupation disability insurance claim and moving into a different role within medicine.

Dr. Alex Parikh spent more than two decades as a surgeon specializing in liver and pancreas surgery. He trained at MD Anderson, spent about 12 years at Vanderbilt, and later served as head of cancer surgery and surgical oncology at the Mays MD Anderson Cancer Center in San Antonio.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Alex Parikh purchased individual disability insurance. As a surgeon, he thought about what might happen if a physical problem kept him from operating.

Years later, he began experiencing pain in the CMC joint of his right thumb. He was diagnosed with stage three CMC arthritis and eventually underwent surgery. After returning to the operating room, the arthritis progressed into another joint in his thumb. Operating became painful, and even moving toward robotic surgery did not solve the problem.

After talking with his hand surgeon about his options, Dr. Alex Parikh began considering what it would mean to stop operating and what he could do next.

That is when the disability insurance he had purchased years earlier became part of the conversation.

Lauren and Dr. Alex Parikh discuss the difference between group disability coverage and an individual own-occupation disability policy, including how the definition of a physician’s occupation can affect a claim.

Dr. Alex Parikh also walks through his experience filing a disability claim. He discusses gathering medical records, documenting his responsibilities as an academic surgeon, the in-person evaluation, the elimination period before receiving disability income, and the timing of moving into a new role.

Today, Dr. Alex Parikh is a full-time instructional professor and director of career advising at Texas A&M’s School of Engineering Medicine in Houston. His new role allows him to continue working in medicine without operating.

Lauren and Dr. Alex Parikh also discuss why he is glad he obtained disability coverage earlier in his career. As he explains, disability can carry different financial implications depending on when it happens, how much a physician has accumulated, the income needs of the household, and how many working years remain.

But this conversation is about more than an insurance claim.

Dr. Alex Parikh is candid about the psychological side of leaving surgery after spending decades building a career around it. He talks about missing the operating room and the challenge of giving up work that had been an important part of his professional life.

His new role has given him another way to use that experience. He now teaches medical students, advises them on their careers and brings more than two decades of clinical experience into the classroom.

For physicians, Dr. Alex Parikh’s story offers a look at a situation many hope never happens: needing to use the disability insurance they have been paying for.

Instead of discussing disability insurance only in theory, this episode follows the experience of a surgeon who purchased a policy earlier in his career, developed a physical condition that affected his ability to operate, filed a claim and then had to decide what his work would look like going forward.