All Eyes on the Future

Retirement Planning a Key Component for Medical Practice Owners and Administrators

- TIM CRAIG

STARTING AND OWNING a new medical practice comes with a lot of costs that may make it difficult to think about one of the most important parts of a small medical business: the ending.

For many small business owners, thinking about retirement can seem like a distant dream, but it doesn’t have to be. Lorrie Delk Walker of Allen & Co. in Lakeland knows this from firsthand experience: before she started financial planning, she owned a small business.

“For me, I didn’t think about it at first because I was busy building my business,” says Walker. “All money was poured back into it.”

When she was able to start retirement planning, she was unaware of all the options available to her and it was frustrating when she found out. It still is.

“As a financial advisor, I still feel frustration for those 12 years where I could have been doing something more and something different had I only known something about it,” she says.

That’s one reason Walker thinks retirement planning is a key component to a thriving business, particularly for doctor owners of small medical practices.