Last week, I invited David Harris from Prosperident, and expert in dental fraud and embezzlement to speak at our Transitions Group monthly team training webinar. His review of the credible studies of how prone dentists are to fraud was scary. Studies confirm that over 60% of dentists have been victimized by embezzlement, the ADA study showed 52% fraud rate and Dr. Gord Christensen states in his lectures that 90% of dentists will be embezzled in their career.
It could be viewed as an epidemic with percentages this high and reminded us as coaches of how the behaviors of an embezzling staff member can mimic the behaviors of a dedicated employee. I recommitted as a speaker to educate audiences that dental fraud is happening and often gets worse when dental employees have personal economic hardship. All dentists are prone and involve all ages, varied general and specialty practice settings and were located in small rural areas as well as metropolitan cities.
So… what can be done… PREVENTION, PREVENTION, PREVENTION
Below are 10 things that dentist owners can do to prevent fraud and embezzlement…
1. Understand how to run reports from the dental software
2. Make use of the authority levels within the dental software.
3. Write offs are posted and tracked individually as opposed to one large amount. i.e.
senior courtesy, family discount, PPO reduction etc..
4. Have each clinical person sign off on their own daily posting of codes and procedures
5. Review the practice daily record of transactions each day.
6. Secure the point of sales terminals for debit and credit.
7. Insist on record of daily bank deposits
8. Review the accounts receivable list and note credits or write off’s of owed amounts.
9. Print a monthly transactional report that shows all changes made to your data with
additions and deletions
10. Make sure if a office manager is managing money, dual signatures are required for
outgoing payables and checks drawn on the bank account.
Lisa Philp
www.transitionsonline.com
416-716-1116
Life is Strange, Life is Good…Life is ALL that it should be.
