Dentaltown February 2013 - (Page 40)

practice management message board Employee Embezzlement, Not Sure Which One » Dentaltown.com > Message Boards > Practice Management > Staff Management Issues > Employee Embezzlement, Not Sure Which One Matt Petersen Member Since: 01/28/10 Post: 1 of 54 Townie Meeting Embezzlement CE Course David Harris, Chief Executive Officer of Prosperident, the world’s largest dental embezzlement investigation firm, is teaching a course on embezzlement at the 2013 Townie Meeting. The course is called “How to Steal From a Dentist.” Visit TownieMeeting.com to register for this year’s Townie Meeting, April 17-20. t A Townie asks for help in determining which of his two employees is embezzling cash from his practice. I have a practice that is a year-and-a-half old and apparently still have some things to learn to make sure myself and people handling money are better protected in the office. I use Open Dental. On 9/29 there were two cash payments that were deleted about two hours after they were entered. This was the same day that I was going out of town for vacation, so I did not review reports or check the audit trail (I don’t check the audit trail that often unless I have a reason, although I see that I should spot check it more often for deletions). The payments were collected by my receptionist around noon. Receipts were printed for both transactions and show up in the images tab. I require that the patients sign a copy that we keep mainly as a way to try and ensure that every payment receives a receipt. Both payments were deleted about four hours later from my office manager’s computer with her login. The signed receipts were missing and the cash was missing from both payments in that day’s deposit. On Friday, my office manager said she needed to sit down with me. This was prompted because a patient came in to make a payment and when he received his receipt he noticed that his last cash payment of $100 was not there. My receptionist was out that day so my office manager happened to be at the front desk at that time. She told me that she looked into this by pulling the audit trail and then was presenting me with what she found. She said she was very surprised to see her name on there and it was not her, she would never… No other front office staff were in the office that day. So it is either a situation that the receptionist printed receipts (which would have been stupid to put the payment in at all if you planned on taking it, but people are capable of stupid things) then went to the office manager’s computer when she was away from it to delete the payments so it looked like her that did it. The other scenario is that the office manager figured (correctly, unfortunately) that we would be too busy getting out of town to do too much checking into any reports for the day so it was a good time to snatch some money, deleted the payments, figured the patients would probably not notice the difference of just a few hundred, then when a patient noticed, freaked and came to us first so it seemed she found it instead of did it. I have not confronted the receptionist yet, but my guess is that she will rest the blame on the office manager just as the OM has placed the blame on the receptionist. I desperately want to at least fire the person who did this. But I am truly unsure who has really done this or how I could even go about finding out. Any suggestions from the veterans out there on how to deal with dishonest employees? Especially in a situation where you are not sure who is really to blame? My first office manager was embezzling by shorting the deposit for short-term loans (separate incident). I am surprised I have had to deal with this so much already in the first year and a half. It makes me consider very extensive security measures. Thanks in advance. n Matt OCT 14 2012 continued on page 42 40 FEBRUARY 2013 » dentaltown.com http://www.Dentaltown.com http://www.TownieMeeting.com http://www.dentaltown.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown February 2013

Dentaltown.com Highlights
Howard Speaks: The SWOT Analysis
Professional Courtesy: Get Off the Hamster Wheel
Continuing Education Update
Second Opinion: Predicting the Future of Dental Amalgam Use and FDA Regulation
Nuts & Bolts Full Arch Case Dissected… Tips, Tricks & Stuff
Employee Embezzlement, Not Sure Which One
Corporate Profile: GC America
Sleep Dentistry Section
Product Profile: Sleep Optima
Breathe Easy: The Advent of CPAP
ACSDD Consortium
Sleep Apnea
Townie Meeting 2013 Last Call!
Do-it-Yourself Finance, Part III: Debt
The Most Effective Presentation Process Ever
“Patient Friendly Dentistry” to the Rescue
Does Kissing Affect Oral Health?
Can Groundhog Day Make a Difference?
Top 10 Tips to a Successful Practice Start-up
How to Build Up the Perfect Tooth
Why We See Problems with Teeth Whitening: The Science of Whitening Part IV – Whitening Sensitivity Solutions
Continuing Education: Full-Arch Appliance Use for Nighttime Parafunction Management
Ad Index
In This Issue: Implants Are Growing in Popularity
Perio Reports
Continuing Education: A.I.M. for Implant Success
Scaling on Patients with Implants
Dentally Incorrect

Dentaltown February 2013