Have you heard of other doctor’s staff members embezzling?  Are you sure that your practice is safe from embezzlers?  This Management Pearl can help you evaluate your practice and put your mind at ease.

This pearl provides a painless vaccine for what seems to be an epidemic: embezzlement of funds in orthodontic practices, even with computerized financial control.  It is difficult to determine the full extent of embezzling, since the embarrassed embezzled, prefer not to talk about it.  However, a good guess would be that many practices may be unaware that they were/are being embezzled.  The embezzled funds can vary from a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars embezzled over many years.

All embezzlers are always trusted employees and some are even significant others or wives.  If not vaccinated and something accidentally goes wrong, and it will, the implication of embezzlement may hang over an innocent employee.

Computers not only provide opportunity for creative embezzlers, they also provide safeguards against it if they are properly used.  There are two types of embezzlement—collections and payments.  When there is a transfer of money from your patients to you (collections) or from you to your creditors (payments) there is an opportunity for embezzlement.

Refer to the attachment below for further details.

If considering staffing changes you might find the “Ultimate Organization & Hiring Kit” of value to create the best team for you.