Episode Transcript

Auto-generated transcript: What To Do If You Suspect Embezzlement

You are listening to the dental practice owner's podcast. Brought to you by Prosperident. From our unique perspective as dentistry's and bezel-lit experts, Prosperident's team can bring you the information that is important to practice owners. The dental practice owner's podcast brings you strategies, tools and tips that you can use, and dentistry's thought leaders as guests.

So sit back, relax, and listen to Prosperident's Amber Weber. Wendy Askins and David Harris. Talk about the issues that matter to you. We've got a lot that you can join us. What we're going to talk about today is picking up the pieces and what to do when the unthinkable happens. When you become a victim of imbezblemist and fraud happening in your office.

So today's topic is going to be really interesting. We're going to share information and stories for those of you who maybe haven't experienced this yet. So that if that day ever comes, you are prepared to know how to prepare yourself. Thank you, Amber. Hi, Dave. It's good to see you.

I think to see everyone else that's joined us today. I am so excited about this topic. Having worked with so many clients and walked them through that moment in time when the unthinkable has happened to them. And they find out that someone has been and does link from them. And they're just totally confused.

And they've got all of these thoughts whirling around and they're had, what do I do? Where do we go? What else is going to affect my family and my business? Today we're going to get some of those answers to you. We're going to walk you through what happens when you first become suspicious? What happens when you confirm your suspicion?

And how you confront. So from suspicion to confrontation, we're going to walk you through all of those. We're also going to walk you through the avenues of restitution that are available, but similarly and criminally. And we're also going to talk about how to manage your personal and your business reputation.

Because after you become the result, that's also very important to how you, the messaging that you control the message that goes out from that particular experience. When you have that sinking feeling, and you wake up in the middle of the night with a start and suddenly it becomes clear that maybe that trusted staff member of yours isn't so trustworthy after all.

The first thing I'm going to tell you is that when you have that feeling statistically, you're right about 70% of the time. Trust your instincts. When I get talking to doctors who call me and have that suspicion, one of the first questions I ask them is this, let's say hypothetically, this person is not still. How do you feel about them otherwise as an employee? In other words, would they keep their job or not if

the measurement was now? And sometimes, then this will say to me, you know what, they're far from my best employee anyway. So I think if they're not stealing, they probably don't have a job here. And then one of the things that I say to them very quickly is, well, okay, so if they lose their job if they're stealing and they lose their job if they're not stealing,

this might be a time to look at firing. In other words, why wait until the end of our investigation they'll live that person go? Sometimes having evidence of a measurement is helpful in getting through the termination process without, for example, getting sued. And if that's the case, then firing now may not make sense. But if you have an employee who is fireable now,

and you're not happy with them, and you also think they're stealing, well, let's just do what's gonna happen anyway and get them up in order. The next thing I'm gonna say is this, if you have suspicions about somebody, it's really vital that you not let that person know that you have concerns. And it was a case where there was a murder.

And this happened in Annronville County, so just outside Baltimore, Maryland, and somebody named Shantay, Dr. Hickman, ended up murdering her doctor because Shantay thought that the doctor was gonna catch her stealing. And I mean, this is a, this is a terribly tragic story. And what makes it even worse than it would be otherwise is that they amount that she had stolen was $17,000.

If somebody's going to go to jail, you know, the list of things they would not do to prevent that from happening's pretty short. Now, thieves don't always think things through. If somebody's embezzling from you and your practice burns down, they're gonna be the number one suspect. I mean, they will get caught in punishment, but that isn't necessarily consistent with how they think.

Here are some of the things that doctors do when they suspect an investment to get them caught or get them uncovered. The first one is you go to your receptionist or your office manager and you ask for a whole bunch of reports you've never asked for before. And then the next thing you do with those reports is you take them into your private office,

you close the door, you phone your CPA and you spend an hour on the phone your CPA. If I am a thief and I'm stealing from you, every morning when you come into the practice, I look at you and I ask myself the question, does she know that I'm stealing? And anything like kind of actions I'm talking about here will cement in my mind that you are.

Of course, one of the cardinal sins here is to bring onsite investigators. One thing, if you've been watching our webinars that you know about us is that we do everything we can to avoid setting foot in your practice. And almost everything that we do is done at a distance. And the internet is very much our friend in that. But onsite investigators,

you know, it's very hard to stick a geeky account and looking person in your practice for four days and claim that they're there to fix your compressor.

So we don't want to do that. And we're going to talk a little bit later about confronting the suspect. Certainly when you have suspicions or even discovery of investment is way too early to confront a suspect at that point. You need to know a lot more than you do at that juncture. And all you're likely to do if you're in the 70% who are right

is tip your hand prematurely. And if you're in the 30% where they get suspicious and it's not true, then you're going to ruin a relationship within a place. So there is a time for confrontation. but it's not early on. And we all know that Dennis love to fix things quickly. This is a case where you really need to be a little bit patient.

So if you do kids somewhere, someone red handed, just like you were talking Dave, you can't let your emotions get in the middle of it. So this slide's kind of talks about a childhood story that we're also familiar with Pinocchio. Pinocchio has celebrated 80th anniversary this year. And going back to the thought of Pinocchio, this is where, as a practice owner, you can really get your lesson on honesty. So in the story of Pinocchio, every time the situation rose, the story always changed. But when you catch someone red handed, this is when you have to have your ducks in the row and have everything ready