PDF Version - Glidewell Dental Labs
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about what these folks could accomplish if they put their<br />
minds to honest labor.<br />
MD: I guess what they’re doing on a small scale is what happens<br />
in big Wall Street firms when there is embezzlement. I don’t<br />
know if you have come across any studies or surveys on this, but<br />
what percent of dentists would you say will have embezzlement<br />
be an issue in their office at some point in their career?<br />
DH: In the published statistics, there are two or three<br />
surveys saying that somewhere between 50 and 60 percent<br />
of dentists will be victims. But there is a confounding factor<br />
to this because there is a fair amount of embezzlement that<br />
never gets detected by anybody and therefore won’t be in<br />
the statistics. So the true number is probably higher, but I<br />
think it’s safe to tell your audience that at least three in five<br />
dentists will be victims at some point in their careers.<br />
MD: Wow, that seems like a pretty high number. I wonder<br />
how much of that is from repeat offenders like the person you<br />
referenced in your first story where she goes from one office to<br />
another. Is that a common occurrence?<br />
DH: It definitely happens. We call them serial embezzlers.<br />
There was one woman who was working in the Toronto,<br />
Canada, area. Over a period of four years, she worked in<br />
13 different practices and stole from all of them. She was<br />
really good at getting hired, but as a thief — despite a fair<br />
amount of practice — she wasn’t all that skilled. So she<br />
would get caught fairly quickly and get terminated, then<br />
move to the next office.<br />
MD: If these so-called serial embezzlers can come up with<br />
creative schemes that continue to impress you, I would guess<br />
that they have decent verbal skills when it comes to lying.<br />
So couldn’t they show up at an office and seem to be a<br />
dream employee?<br />
DH: Absolutely. The serial embezzlers are very much takecharge<br />
people. They cater to what I sometimes call the<br />
“wet-fingered fantasy” some dentists have. A fantasy where<br />
they get into their office every morning, do high-quality<br />
dentistry on a relatively small number of patients and then<br />
go home, without having to get dragged into the messiness<br />
of managing their practice. The serial embezzlers cater to<br />
that. They know the computer systems really well; they’re<br />
organized and efficient. They look like they are working<br />
hard. It’s what every dentist wants. So it’s easy for them to<br />
get hired because when they’re in the door, they cater to<br />
this idea. They’re the people who will run personal errands<br />
for you on their lunch hours.<br />
MD: To back up the impression that they are somebody who<br />
would take a bullet for you, so how could they ever embezzle?<br />
DH: That’s right. Now, having said all that, the vast majority<br />
of embezzlement is not carried on by the serial embezzlers.<br />
It’s done by long-time employees. The big stuff that we<br />
investigate is usually from employees who have been in<br />
your office for 3, 5 or 12 years. Generally speaking, we think<br />
that these people had no plan to embezzle from you when<br />
they were hired. But then something happened to them<br />
that put their backs to the wall financially, and they decided<br />
that instead of going downtown and stealing people’s<br />
wallets, just sitting at the same desk where they work every<br />
day and handling the paperwork a little differently was a<br />
better answer.<br />
MD: Wow, so it’s often somebody who started off as a trusted<br />
employee and probably has a well-deserved good reputation?<br />
DH: Clean employment record, no blemishes on it at all.<br />
One morning they just woke up and said, “Today is the day<br />
I’m going to steal from my employer.”<br />
MD: Yeah, or something happens. Maybe they lose their house,<br />
a spouse loses a job, or they get divorced. There might be a<br />
situation that makes them desperate enough to steal from a<br />
person they might have previously held a lot of affection and<br />
trust for.<br />
DH: What I’ll suggest is that there are different definitions<br />
of desperation. There are some real hardship cases like<br />
the examples you mentioned; you know, somebody who<br />
is three months behind on their mortgage payment and is<br />
about to lose their house. We also find people who steal<br />
to get things that you and I probably wouldn’t consider<br />
necessities. We’re wrapping up an investigation now where<br />
the woman who was stealing was spending $800 a month<br />
on a personal trainer, and she also belonged to something<br />
called the Shoe of the Month Club. I wouldn’t consider her<br />
to be desperate. But of course what I think doesn’t matter;<br />
it’s her perception that governs her behavior.<br />
MD: Exactly. Do you think dentists are more prone to this type<br />
of embezzlement than other small businesses?<br />
DH: Probably. There is one differentiating characteristic<br />
between the way dentistry operates compared to, say, a<br />
plumbing business. The differentiation has nothing to do<br />
with the amount of business knowledge that each owner<br />
has, or the amount of attention that each spends on<br />
business versus the other things in their trade. What sets<br />
dentistry apart is that a lot of it is paid for by third parties.<br />
So we have this unstable situation where patients, for the<br />
most part, really don’t understand a whole lot about what<br />
just happened in their mouth, and somebody else is paying<br />
for it anyway. So the amount of attention that patients pay<br />
when leaving your office is minimal. If there is an extra<br />
charge in there or something that shouldn’t be, very few<br />
patients are going to notice it and object.<br />
MD: Especially if it’s an extra charge that is billed to the<br />
insurance company, right?<br />
Interview with David Harris47