It's no secret that all doctors have plenty of financial issues to address, including student loan debt, children's college funds, retirement planning and estate planning. But since very few actually have the time to manage them, many physicians hire a financial planner. And financial planners know it.

Scads of financial planners cater to doctors' concerns, but underqualified or shady planners can be much too easy to find. Here are tips from sources within the industry designed to help you search for a planner you can trust with the fruits of your livelihood.

1 Find a professional match.    
Everyone interviewed for this article recommends finding an advisor who you're comfortable with. "That means, obviously, meeting face to face," says Caroline Coderre, a certified financial planner and certified divorce financial analyst for the Darrow Co., which has offices in Los Angeles and Concord, Mass. She continues: "Has the advisor asked plenty of questions? Do you have a sense that he or she really understands what you're trying to get at?"

"You want to look for somebody you can build a long-term relationship with," advises Mitchell Kraus, a CFP, Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant with Capital Intelligence Associates in Los Angeles. "A younger physician would probably want to look for a younger planner; an older physician could use an older one or a younger one, depending on what their goals are," he says.

Your level of comfort indirectly impacts the quality of advice you will get. "The more that [clients] are able to share all their personal information, the better the results are going to be," Kraus says. Coderre agrees, "I think a good advisor, through their questions, may uncover issues and concerns that you've never even thought about."

The California Medical Association's affinity partner, Mercer Advisors, has written a book on financial planning for physicians and dentists. Members receive $500 off of Mercer's Economic Freedom Program, a detailed analysis of their current financial position and goals for the future.

2 Scrutinize credentials.
"I'd say 80 percent of [financial planner designations] are not worth much at all," says Mark Wilson, a CFP and Accredited Pension Administrator at the Tarbox Group in Newport Beach and an occasional spokesman for the CFP Board of Standards.

"I'm kind of a snob," Wilson says. "If I see that people have listed [insubstantial] designations, I actually think they're on the wrong side of the fence, because they're trying to push these designations as if they're something that's useful." For example, Wilson holds the Certified Senior Advisor designation in low regard.

The Financial Planning Association, which Kraus sometimes speaks for, holds up the CFP as the best designation. While he knows planners without credentials who are talented and trustworthy, and credentialed professionals who are "crooks," Kraus maintains that solid credentials are good indicators of knowledge. In addition to his own CLU and ChFC designations, he also trusts the Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow credential.

Paul Temby, a CFP, CDFA, and Chartered Financial Analyst at Dowling & Yahnke in San Diego, adds Registered Investment Advisor to the list of solid professional designations.

For insight into financial planners' ethics, find their records with the CFP Board of Standards or the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. "Make sure that they don't have any dings against them on their record, and if they do, that they can explain them," Kraus says.

3 Favor fees over commissions.
Rather than doing commission-based planning, fee-for-service planners use a scale that's relative to the assets managed. "Ideally, the fee will be less than 1 percent for the first million dollars, and probably less than half a percent once you start getting over several million," Temby says. He also recommends picking a planner using a tax-sensitive approach that takes into account the higher taxes on short-term capital gains versus long-term.

"We tend to find that [doctors] are looking for the fee-only model-mostly because we do more comprehensive planning for them, so that way we don't have any conflicts of interest [concerning investments]," Coderre says. To guard against such conflicts, she counsels directly asking advisors whether they have a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interests of their clients. "Believe it or not, that's not always a requirement, depending on the compensation model," she says.
    
4 Understand which services will be in-house.
In the same vein as avoiding conflicts of interest, make sure you know who will be involved in your planning. "Some planners may provide certain services in-house, such as investment, insurance, tax preparation, even estate planning," says Edward Ramsey, a CPA, CFP and Certified Healthcare Business Consultant at Ramsey and Associates in Greenbelt, Md. An advertiser in this magazine, Ramsey plans to open offices in Southern California. "The compensation has to be clear to the doctor, [insofar as] who gets paid what." Regarding insurance, "if a financial planner refers a doctor to an insurance agent to buy a $20,000 per year premium, they should at least be asking, 'Is there a referral relationship?'"

5 Ask for documentation.   
Also, make sure you ask for a Form ADV, Ramsey says. "Just asking that question-to ask for that document-immediately gets the doctor to the point that the planner thinks that this person has already talked to somebody else or has done his homework."

You can find Part 1 of the form, which contains 10 years of information on an advisor's education, business and disciplinary history, on the Securities and Exchange Commission's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure Web site at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Part 2 presents an advisor's services, fees and investment strategies.