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