That's a tough one. Can you convince the private practice to implement a retirement plan at some time in the near future? It's my understanding that an employee or an owner of a private practice can't set up a retirement plan on his or her own outside of the group (unless you earn income outside of the group and own less than 50% of the private practice). The only option you have is to put $5.5k into an IRA if your group doesn't set up a retirement plan.

One inexpensive option is for the group to set up a SIMPLE IRA. With a SIMPLE, the only cost is a 3% matching contribution or a 2% non-matching contribution. There should be no other fees or filing requirements. However, you and any of the other employees can sock away $12k ($12.5k if 50 or older) out of your salary into these pre-tax savings accounts. You can set up a SIMPLE at Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab or any of the other financial institutions.

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