Jumping from the employee channel to build an independent advisory practice is increasingly easy—except when it comes to health insurance.

That’s the subtitle of the article. An excerpt:

Advisor Vance Barse of Your Dedicated Fiduciary in San Diego, Calif. operates under Commonwealth Financial Network’s corporate RIA. Since Commonwealth does not offer it’s 1099 contracted employees health insurance, Barse chose to purchase insurance for his family directly from Blue Shield after being ineligible for subsidies in the state exchange. (California runs its own marketplace apart from Obamacare.)

He paid $1,700 a month for his silver preferred provider option (PPO). It was higher than a health maintenance organization (HMO) plan that commonly gives subscribers lower monthly payments. But a PPO gave Barse’s family the flexibility they needed to seek specialists without a referral from a primary care provider, unlike an HMO. Since his wife, Jodi, has a pre-existing health condition, Grave’s disease, they require seeing specialists. What’s more, all of her doctors are not on an HMO plan, said Barse.

See The Healthcare Challenge for Independent Advisors in Wealth Management.