While planners nationwide are mindful that their baby-boomer clientele will become elderly in the coming years, this future is now at Rutherford Asset Planning in Naples, Fla. Run by Suzette Rutherford, CFP and her husband Ron, this mom-and-pop shop offers a wide range of services, including investment management, retirement planning and distributions, insurance analysis and philanthropic consulting, as well as its specialty, tax and estate planning (and related tax preparation).

Rutherford and her husband entered the financial planning world in 1986, having been information technology consultants for IBM in their prior careers. "It was Ron's idea to go into financial planning," she says. "I didn't want to be home alone while he was in school, so I followed him to business school and then into the Certified Financial Planning program."

Since the firm's debut, the Rutherfords' practice has grown to 70 clients with a collective $200 million in assets. (Minimum account size is $2 million.) The majority of the firm's clients are Florida retirees. To best serve this aging clientele, Rutherford has developed concierge services that center on the needs of elderly clients -and that are far from common fare for planning firms. Notable among these services are concierge medical plans, related bill paying and cash flow tracking and comprehensive estate planning.

While many planners bemoan the dearth of high quality, well-coordinated medical care, Rutherford has done something about the problem. She discovered concierge doctors five years ago when a client, a former CEO, expressed anxiety over his doctors' lack of personal attention and poor bedside manner. Her research led to Personalized Physician Care, a medical practice in Bonita Springs, just north of Naples, where, for a flat annual fee of $5,000 per individual (spouses cost an additional $3,000) a group of doctors acts as a client's primary physician, performing annual medical exams (including CAT scans) and monitoring and coordinating all health-related issues for the client. This fee is not reimbursable from health insurance companies or Medicare.

M.D. Pressure

The impetus for this service stems from what Rutherford describes as the unfortunate pressure under which most physicians work. Doctors typically see more than 3,000 patients a year, she says, and typically limit their consultations to 15 minutes. This has encouraged some doctors, including the Rutherfords' primary physician, to convert to the concierge model. She notes, "Our concierge doctors may limit their practice to 300 patients. And they make house calls."

Rutherford has no trouble "selling" these services to her clients. Her older clients are particularly thrilled to have physicians coordinate the care they receive from specialists and hospitals. Of course, should patients be diagnosed with a particular illness, their treatment is covered by their health insurance and the concierge doctors are paid accordingly.

Rutherford warns that "financial planners interested in pursuing this path for clients need to be aware that most towns do not have medical concierge groups." She advises that planners research services in their own locales, either via the Internet or by talking with local doctors and/or other financial planners.

Her vetting process for these physicians? She refers clients to a short list of concierge medical firms and veteran clients, so they can decide whether they want this type of care. Rutherford finds it amusing that her role as CFO of her clients' finances sometimes includes being the CFO of their bodies as well. Not that she overlooks the more mundane areas of her clients' finances. Her services also include paying bills for clients who dislike handling their day-to-day finances or, as with some elderly clients, are unable to handle them.

Sorting through medical bills and other documents proved to be especially helpful for one older client. "As we were preparing her bills, I discovered that she was not collecting legitimate expenses from her long-term-care policy and corrected this problem post haste," Rutherford recalls.

Like concierge doctors, Rutherford and her husband make house calls to sick clients. They avoid getting power of attorney to write checks on clients' accounts; instead, they sort through bills and write checks for clients to sign. Their compensation for this services is covered by a flat family-office fee.

One might think all these services would require an extensive staff. But no. The Rutherfords run their practice on their own.

Outsourcing

Call it a case study in outsourcing. "Our model is unique," she admits. "We have discovered that small is beautiful. Ron and I are the only people in the firm who meet with clients. We have managed to outsource a tremendous amount of our detail work."