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• TAKING WORK HOME: Company records and documents should NEVER leave your practice. If an employee feels the need to take these documents home with them … or you discover they are doing so on their own terms … then you need to ask yourself what their motivation might be. Chances are they are altering and falsifying records to cover up their scheme. • COWORKER COMPLAINTS: AGAIN, never stop listening to your employees. They hear whispers in the break room. They see what their coworkers do behind the front desk or in the parking lot. They confide in each other. Use that to your advantage and take every complaint to heart. • CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH PATIENTS: If your business team members are particularly sweet on some patients over others, consider their relationship outside of the office. Employees have been known to give their friends discounts by skimming off the money the friend pays for their own bank accounts. • BORROWING OR ASKING FOR ADVANCES: This could be a clear-cut sign that an employee is desperate and might do something they rationally know is wrong. • CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH VENDORS: Just as your team members can make friends with patients, your team members can become close with the vendors they see day in and day out. Numerous embezzlement circles have been busted involving vendor and dental practice team members teaming up against the Dentist. • EMPLOYEES WHO RESIST AUTOMATED ACCOUNTING … OR CHANGE IN GENERAL: A disruption in the system is the ultimate alarm bell for a thief. When you implement cameras to monitor your front desk or a system that will streamline your billing and payment process, the resistance could be coming from a place of real threat to your business. People will always be wary of change, but those who are embezzling will be adamantly opposed to it. • BLAMING TECHNOLOGY: Lastly, if you have a team member who blames a computer glitch or software error for a billing or accounting issue, you may have a team member who is covering up their thievery. Technology issues happen to everyone, and mistakes can be made. But making note of these can help you determine a pattern. Take care not to fall into an embezzlement trap, but don’t drive yourself to the point of paranoia over each employee’s off-handed remark or action. Educating yourself on the realities of dental office embezzlement and implementing safety nets will help you be prepared to catch embezzlement before it runs you into bankruptcy. If you have reason to suspect that you may be the victim of embezzlement and would like me to introduce you to Mindy Salzman, email me at Tom@1000Gems.com.
problem. A team member can write themselves a refund check using a fictitious name, cash the check themselves, and your books will only reflect a refund. After seeing dozens of patients every day, are you really going to remember if Bob Smith was your patient or not? Thieving employees are banking on that. • HIGH PRESSURE COLLECTION TACTICS: Listen to your patients and employees. They are on the front lines every day, and they see and hear things you can’t. If patients are complaining about office managers or front desk team members who are harassing them over payment, this could be because you have an employee who is working hard to cover up their stolen money. • DECREASE IN COLLECTIONS: Now, the opposite for collections can be a red flag, too. This is often when Dentists realize they are the victims of embezzlement. When they can’t pay their vendors or their property bills, Dentists dig into their books and discover they are not being fully paid for all the treatments they perform. Further digging will often reveal that team members are pocketing the cash. • DECLINE IN JOB PERFORMANCE: Think of it this way … When an employee is focused on covering their butt from embezzling money, how much real work for your practice can they do? REMEMBER ... listen to the complaints your employees have about other employees. If your once-competent office manager is now slacking and making mistakes, could their mind be preoccupied with stealing from you, or is there another issue? It’s worth digging into. • PERSONALITY CHANGES: This falls right in line with a decline in job performance. If your once happy-go-lucky Hygienist is now moody, rude, and irritable, there could be a deeper reason for this change. Maybe she is working through a big personal dilemma, but there’s a chance she’s also hiding a big secret from you. • FROM RAGS TO RICHES … FAST: One of the most obvious signs of theft and embezzlement is a sudden lifestyle change. If your business manager once struggled to pay the bills but is suddenly going on a Caribbean cruise and sporting diamond earrings, consider the source of their newfound wealth. Again, as Mindy points out, a big motivating factor for those who embezzle is a belief they deserve a lavish lifestyle. • OVERPROTECTIVE OF DUTIES: Be wary of the employee who never takes a vacation, won’t let anyone do their tasks, and works beyond lunch. Some team members are just hard workers. Others don’t want people to find out about their embezzling operation, and, by keeping their job duties close to the vest, no one will find out. In fact, Mindy points out that it’s often when these employees inevitably go on vacation and a temp fills in that embezzlement is discovered.
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