Financial Advisor for CRNAs in Birmingham, AL
You’ve built one of the most respected careers in healthcare. Now it’s time to build the financial plan to match it. We help CRNAs in Birmingham lower their lifetime tax bill, invest with a real strategy, and put an actual retirement date on the calendar.
Financial Advisor, 2025
No commissions. Ever.
Brett Fellows, 20+ Years
You've Earned This
High-Earning CRNAs Deserve a Financial Plan That Actually Reflects Their Career
CRNAs working in Birmingham, across UAB Health, Ascension St. Vincent’s, and the surrounding regional facilities, typically earn between $180,000 and $210,000 annually. That puts you among the top earners in healthcare and well into the territory where standard financial advice stops being sufficient.
High income creates financial complexity that most advisors aren’t equipped to handle. Your pre-tax retirement accounts are growing, and with them, a deferred tax liability that doesn’t show up on your statement. Your income consistently pushes you toward the top of the federal tax brackets. If you’re supplementing your staff income with locum work, you’re working through two different sets of rules for contributions, taxes, and deductions, and very few advisors handle both sides of that combination well.
Oak Capital Advisors was built to serve CRNAs specifically. We’ve spent years learning the financial challenges that are particular to a career in anesthesia, and we design every plan around the actual details of your situation, not a general framework with healthcare-worker adjustments bolted on.
“I’m doing well, but I’ve never had a real financial plan. Where do I even start?””I’ve been maxing my 403(b). Is that the right strategy, or am I overloading pre-tax accounts?””I want to retire before 60. Do I have enough, and what do I need to think through to get there?””Is there a financial advisor in this space who actually understands what being a CRNA involves?”
If any of those resonate, this is where the right conversation starts.
What We See Every Day
The Financial Challenges CRNAs Consistently Run Into
In years of working with CRNAs across the Southeast and nationally, the same issues surface repeatedly. They’re not unique to Birmingham. They’re built into the financial structure of a CRNA career. And they compound when no one addresses them early.
Pre-Tax Accounts That Hide a Growing Tax Bill
Your 403(b) or 457(b) balance looks strong. What it doesn’t show is that every dollar in those accounts will be taxed as ordinary income when you withdraw it. At scale, required minimum distributions can force large taxable withdrawals in retirement, regardless of whether you need the income, and push you back into high brackets at a time when you expected taxes to ease.
The Burnout-to-Retirement Question
Anesthesia is physically and emotionally demanding in ways that accumulate over a career. Many of the CRNAs we work with have reached a point where they’re ready to stop, but unsure whether their finances are actually there. We help you get a real, data-driven answer to that question, not a rough estimate that leaves you guessing.
IRMAA: The Medicare Surcharge Most CRNAs Don’t See Coming
High earners pay more for Medicare through an income-based surcharge called IRMAA. Because it’s calculated on income from two years prior, a CRNA who earns well right up to retirement can enter Medicare with premium surcharges they didn’t plan for. Proactive income management and Roth conversion strategy in the years before and after retirement are the primary tools to reduce this.
W-2 and 1099 Income Working Against Each Other
It’s increasingly common for Birmingham-area CRNAs to combine a hospital position with independent locum work. The two income streams operate under different tax rules and different retirement contribution frameworks. Getting them coordinated correctly, to get the most out of savings and keep taxes low, is a specialized task that generalist advisors regularly fumble.
No Strategy for Turning Savings Into Income
Accumulating assets over a career is one discipline. Converting those assets into retirement income efficiently is an entirely different one. The order in which you draw from taxable accounts, tax-deferred accounts, and Roth accounts over time directly affects how much of your wealth actually reaches you versus the IRS. Without a plan for this, the default is usually costly.
Social Security: One Decision You Can’t Undo
CRNAs with strong earnings histories have high Social Security benefits, and a lot to gain or lose from the claiming decision. When to file, how spouse benefits interact, and how Social Security coordinates with other retirement income sources and your tax situation all affect the outcome. This isn’t a decision to make without running the numbers.
What We Do Together
Planning Built Around What Your Life as a CRNA Actually Looks Like
No template. No one-size-fits-all strategy. We build your plan from your specific accounts, your income mix, your timeline, and your goals.
Roth Conversion Planning
We pinpoint the right years and amounts to move pre-tax dollars into Roth, reducing what you’ll owe in taxes over your lifetime and creating a tax-free source of income in retirement.
Retirement Income Strategy
We map out a sequenced withdrawal plan across your account types, which to draw from first, which to preserve, and how to transition between them, in a way that manages your tax burden throughout retirement.
Year-Round Tax Planning
Tax strategy that only happens once a year misses most of the opportunity. We stay engaged with your tax picture throughout the year and act when the windows are open, not after they’ve closed.
Investment Management
Evidence-based portfolios built to your goals, your timeline, and your risk tolerance. We don’t speculate on market direction or recommend products because they pay us a commission.
Social Security Optimization
We run the Social Security analysis specific to your benefit record, your spouse’s situation if applicable, and how your claiming decision interacts with your other sources of retirement income.
Estate and Legacy Planning
Working alongside your estate attorney, we help structure your assets so they move to your intended beneficiaries with minimal tax friction, delays, or legal complexity.
How It Works
Getting Started Is Simpler Than You Think
We don’t believe in pressure. We believe in fit. Our process is designed to give you a clear picture of how we can help before you make any commitment
1
Schedule Your Introductory Call
Think of it like your Pre-Op Assessment. Share your plans and your current challenges. We’ll talk about our process and see if we’re a good fit for working together.
You’ll see, at a high level, how our firm can improve your finances and help you build, grow, and preserve your wealth. To learn more about what to expect, check out our full discovery process.
2
Take a Time-Out
We’re looking for a long-term relationship, not a quick transaction. After your call, take the time you need to decide if working together makes sense. If we aren’t the right fit, we’ll do our best to point you toward someone who is.
3
Induction of Ongoing Advice
Once you decide to move forward, we get to work. We gather a full picture of your finances, build your personalized plan, and become your ongoing financial partner. You delegate the complexity. We handle it.
Why Oak Capital Advisors
What Sets Us Apart for CRNAs in Birmingham and Beyond
Most financial advisors serve everyone. We’ve built our practice around the specific financial planning needs of nurses and advanced practice providers. That focus changes the quality of advice you receive.
A Practice Built Around CRNAs
CRNA financial planning isn’t a side service we offer alongside a general practice. It’s the core of what we do. We know the account types, the income structures, and the career dynamics of anesthesia work in detail, because we’ve spent years immersed in them.
Fee-Only and Fiduciary
We are paid by our clients and nothing else. No commissions, no product fees, no referral arrangements. Our fiduciary obligation means we’re legally required to act in your interest, not recommend whatever benefits us.
Wealthtender Voice of the Client™ Award
In 2025, Brett Fellows was named a Wealthtender Highly Rated Advisor, recognizing advisors who consistently earn superior client reviews with an average rating of 4.75 or higher.
Serving Birmingham CRNAs Remotely at Full Depth
Our office is in Mt. Pleasant, SC. We work with CRNAs throughout Alabama and the Southeast by phone and Zoom. Our remote process is built to be as thorough and responsive as any local relationship.
20+ Years of Financial Planning Experience
Brett Fellows has been a practicing financial planner since 2005. His experience spans recessions, tax law changes, and a wide range of retirement planning situations, many of which map closely to the situations CRNAs face as their careers develop.
CFP® Certified
The CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation represents the highest standard in the planning profession. Roughly three-quarters of advisors don’t hold it. Brett does, and has for years.
Common Questions
What CRNAs in Birmingham Ask Us Most
The starting point is always a clear picture of where you are: what you have, what you owe, what you’re earning, and what you’re spending. From there, we identify the biggest opportunities and the biggest risks, and that usually means looking at your tax situation and your retirement account structure first. Our introductory call is designed to give you a real sense of what that process looks like before you commit to anything.
Maxing a 403(b) reduces your taxes now, which makes sense. But concentrating all of your retirement savings in pre-tax accounts creates a tax liability that compounds over time. Depending on your situation, building Roth or taxable accounts alongside your 403(b), or beginning Roth conversions when strategically advantageous, may serve you better over a 20-to-30-year retirement. This is a question that deserves a real analysis, not a general answer.
1099 locum income creates planning opportunities that your W-2 hospital position doesn’t. A Solo 401(k) funded from locum earnings can supplement your hospital retirement plan with additional tax-deferred contributions. But the interaction between the two plans, self-employment taxes, and what’s deductible on your Schedule C all require careful coordination. This is a common situation for CRNAs, and one we handle specifically.
A traditional advisor may earn income from selling you certain products, annuities, life insurance, mutual funds with commissions built in. That creates a financial incentive that may not align with your best interest. A fee-only fiduciary has no such incentive: we’re paid directly by you, and we’re legally bound to act in your best interest at all times. Over a decade or more of planning, that alignment makes a real difference in the advice you receive.
This is one of the most common situations we work through. We build a retirement readiness analysis that looks at your investable assets, your projected retirement expenses, your healthcare coverage bridge before Medicare, your IRMAA exposure, your Social Security timing, and your account withdrawal sequencing. After that work, you’ll know exactly where you stand, not approximately, but specifically.
Yes. We work with CRNAs across the country via phone and Zoom. Our client base spans multiple states, and distance has never been an obstacle to the quality of planning we provide.
You've invested in your career. Now invest in your future.
Schedule a free 30-minute call to talk through your situation. We’ll walk you through our approach to CRNA financial planning and you’ll leave with a clear sense of whether we’re the right fit. No pressure and no obligation.
Oak Capital Advisors
126 Seven Farms Drive Suite 160
Charleston, SC 29492 • (843) 284-0798
© 2024 Oak Capital Advisors, LLC. All rights reserved.