Thursday, April 26, 2012

The following is a re-post from a blog written by Larry Goldberg - "Accountodontist" at Glass Jacobson.

Last blog I discussed the highly informative DVD by Gordon Christensen titled “Protecting Your Dental Office From Embezzlement & Fraud”.   I mentioned many, but not nearly all, of the things you as a dentist could do to prevent one of your employees from embezzling your hard earned money.

This blog looks at some of the characteristics of the employee who might be stealing right under your nose.  Dr. Christensen mentions going with your gut feeling.  If you suspect someone is up to something dishonest you may want to follow up on your suspicion.

Some of the more general identifying characteristics such as you, the dentist, working as hard as ever and cash deposits that have declined may be hard to differentiate as stealing or a drop off in business due to the current economic climate.  Others such as a large number of adjustments showing up in your dental software merit close inspection.

As Dr. Christensen mentions, many of the characteristics that make a good employee are some of the same characteristics that are the earmark of the employee who’s taking you to the bank so to speak.  Here are just a few.
  • Employee wants additional hours
  • Employee wants to work alone and will not delegate tasks
  • Employee is very loyal
  • Employee resents your lifestyle or apparent income
  • Employee works late or comes in early
  • Employee takes work home
  • Employee refuses to take vacation
  • Employee with lots of discretionary income.  Get suspicious if your single employee making $25,000 per year is driving a brand new Mercedes and has a five bedroom house with a pool and tennis court and does not have a large trust fund.
  • Employee is a long-term employee.  Why would they want to leave your dental practice since you are their personal ATM machine?
  • Employee does not want overtime
So what are you supposed to do now?  Do you instantly start suspecting each and every one of your employees of being a clandestine thief?  Of course not!  However, armed with the information from this and the previous accountadontist blog you should realize that you cannot just be a passive observer in your dental practice.  You need to get involved in many of the business aspects of your dental practice that you previously ignored.  YOUR money is at stake!

If you suspect fraud in your practice, or want to set up preventative measures, contact us.  Glass Jacobson’s fraud prevention team can help.

Questions for the Accountodontist?

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