Your insurance pays out when the building burns. It doesn't pay out when the hurricane misses and you close for ten days anyway.
Van Carlson is Founder and CEO of SRA 831(b) Admin, the largest administrator of 831(b) plans - a part of the tax code that lets small and mid-sized practices set aside pre-tax dollars for the risks insurance won't touch. He has almost 30 years in risk management and hosts the Unmitigated podcast.
He joins Jakub Grajcar on what practices are already self-insuring without knowing it.
We dig into:
🏥 Van's #1 tip for growing a practice - stay relevant. Embrace AI where it fits, and drop the wash, rinse, repeat: "if your competitors are willing to bob and weave, you better be willing to too"
💰 What an 831(b) plan actually is - an HSA for business risk: expense the dollars up front, hold them tax-deferred, use them when your insurer doesn't
🌪️ The losses nobody covers - COVID shutdowns, hurricane evacuations where the storm never lands, a washed-out bridge that stops patients reaching you
📄 Your policy in 2019 vs. today - higher premiums and more exclusions, and every exclusion is risk moved back onto your side of the ledger
🔍 Medicare and Medicaid audits - the auditors are paid a cut of what they find, and honest practices still get caught on a missing dot
🛡️ Brand protection - reviews and local news move your income and your exit value, and there is no policy that covers it
🔐 Cyber comes down to training - over 90% of breaches trace back to staff knowledge, so run phishing tests, pre-write the press release, and put cyber training into the review cycle
Resources mentioned:
👤 Guest: Van Carlson - Founder & CEO, SRA 831(b) Admin
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vancarlson Website:
https://www.831b.com🎙️ Podcast - Unmitigated (Van's show on risk management for business owners)
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unmitigated/id1751591180 Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/1XJMDNuF2FsqWgGtEdEIuW🎙️ Also recommended - Darknet Diaries (Jakub's podcast pick on how breaches, social engineering and forensics actually work):
https://darknetdiaries.com🎥 See how Talkie.ai works - AI medical receptionist demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOiJ3ITTrLY&list=PLLjcCBHYN2KoBqm-Dx-8lIwWLuU-CHXSg