Category: Prosperident Newsletters

We were pretty brave last month. We went head to head with the Presidential Debate — and we won. We had record registration.

In November, there will be no such distraction; the election will be a fading memory for most of us, and there are barely any sports on TV.

You have to like the title for November – Healing After Stealing. We will be talking about the effects of embezzlement on victims, staff, and their families.

The webinar takes place Thursday, November 19, at 8:00 pm Eastern / 5:00 pm Pacific.

To register, click HERE.

If you want to catch up on our previous webinars, including October’s The Million Dollar Club, Meet Embezzlement’s Elite, you can access them at THIS LINK.

PACE CE credit is available.

We look forward to having you back in our audience!

Most of you know Amber Weber as one of our Senior Fraud Examiners and as an on-camera host of our webinar series. But it doesn’t stop there — Amber has lots of other talents.

Here is Amber giving a Halloween Greeting (and some wisdom about hiring) in a Halloween Rap.

Click HERE to play the video.

Big News!

Our Embezzlement Risk Assessment Questionnaire has just received a major overhaul.

What is the Most Secure Practice Management Software?

A frequently asked question by doctors regarding practice management software is whether there is a brand of practice management software that is better at protecting a doctor against embezzlement.

This is like asking if one hammer is safer to use than another. All hammers have the potential to be safe if used properly and the potential to cause grievous harm if they are not.

Let’s start by looking at your software in a way that is slightly different than what you are accustomed to.

As we move past Halloween and the Christmas season rushes headlong toward us, many people pause for a nanosecond or two in November to give thanks for the blessings that have been bestowed on them.

With the second wave of Covid arriving, a politically polarized population, racial tensions, and many other issues in the world, negativity is not in short supply these days. However, it wasn’t hard for me to come up with a lot of positives:

1. I’m thankful that my family is healthy and safe.

2. I am blessed to have the chance to work with smart, talented people who are also fantastic human beings (although some should not quit their day jobs — see the column to the left).

3. I’m thankful that, through the challenges of Covid, dentists have found a way to deliver the care that their patients need safely.

4. I’m really thankful that my giant son is ensconsed in residence at college and that feeding him is now someone else’s problem. The meal plan really is a bargain for him.

5. Most of all, my team is humbled by the partnership we have formed with the dental profession as we guide its members through particularly stressful periods in their lives.

Thank you for the trust you have placed in us!

Sincerely,

This month’s webinar promises to be particularly interesting. The topic is The Million Dollar Club – Meet Dentistry’s Elite.

David, Wendy, and Amber will be joined by some Prosperident investigators who will talk about some of their most interesting cases, including thieves who took over a million dollars from their dentists.

The webinar takes place Thursday, October 22, at 8:00 pm Eastern / 5:00 pm Pacific.

To register, click HERE.

If you want to catch up on our previous webinars (we had some great topics like Forensic Hiring and

PACE CE credit is available.

We look forward to having you back in our audience!

Scott is one of the three people at Prosperident to hold the title Supervising Examiner. This means that Scott has that combination of intelligence and tenacity to put him at the top of his field. Let’s hear what Scott has to say about practice management software.

Click HERE to play the video.

How Big is the Embezzlement Problem?

The most recent broadly-based survey of embezzlement was performed by the American Dental Association’s Center for Dental Practice, which was published in 2019. In this survey, 19,991 dentists were polled, and the astonishing result was that 48.64% of those who responded confirmed that they had been victims of embezzlement.

It didn’t stop there. As can be seen from the graph above, almost half of the dentists who reported being embezzled disclosed that they had been victims more than once, with 9% of respondents confirming that they had been victimized four or more times.

I’ll confess to being a news junkie. I’ve always been interested in what is going on in the world.

Lately, my interest has faded. The COVID numbers, which people watch in the way they would look at baseball scores in other times, and the decidedly nasty turn that politics has taken, have made the news far less appealing for me than it once was.

However, I saw an ad a few days ago that gave me pause. The essence of the ad was that if the impact of the virus was that you were stuck at home, that meant that you have a home. If you are bothered about wearing a mask when buying groceries, that means you have money for food. The message was that a bit of adversity should not make us oblivious to the blessings that we have.

As I write this, two of our valued team members, Scott Clifford (profiled in the left column) and Rose Clifford, are on evacuation alert due to wildfires near their home in Northern California. This is the second time for Scott and Rose in the past two years – the 2018 Camp Fire came very close to them, and Scott’s parents lost their home in that fire.

Unquestionably, the virus has impacted both dentists and those who provide goods or services to dentists adversely. I know that Thanksgiving isn’t until next month, but as the ad suggested, let’s be grateful for what we have and give some thought to those less fortunate.

Sincerely,

This month, we have a special treat for you. We have invited our audience members to submit questions, and if we use yours on-air, you win a prize.

David, Wendy, and Amber will answer your questions on Wednesday, September 16, at 8:00 pm Eastern / 5:00 pm Pacific.

To register, click HERE.

Do you have a question you want us to answer? Click HERE to submit it.

If you want to catch up on our previous webinars (we had some great topics like Forensic Hiring and

PACE CE credit is available.

We look forward to having you back in our audience!

Hear dental industry leader Interview David Harris in a wide-ranging and thought-provoking discussion.

Click HERE to play the episode.

Profiles of the Embezzler – the Narcissistic Sociopath, the Hero and the Sugar Momma

It’s a bittersweet moment in my life as I pack my son off this week to begin his next chapter. He is off to college 1,200 miles away to study math and computer science, and play basketball.

I can barely remember what it was like not to have Ethan around. From the impish, perpetually giggling four-year-old who endlessly made me chase him around the house to the gigantic teenager, chronically leaving his size 16 sneakers where everyone would trip on them, he has always been there.

I feel badly for his generation. The COVID restrictions have meant that some of the important life events, like high school graduation and a prom, have been skipped over or radically altered. The college experience is going to be quite different from the carefree one with which we were blessed.

We adults have sufficient perspective to recognize that eventually, the disruption will pass, but I am not sure that teenagers can contextualize as easily.

In the way that the parents of baby boomers were forever altered by their experience coming of age in WW2, this group will always be the “COVID Generation”.

Ethan is handling it well and is excited about upcoming challenges. I hope that, if someone in your family is entering a new phase, that it goes equally well for them.

Sincerely,

Prosperident’s next webinar takes place on August 19 at 8:00 pm Eastern / 5:00 pm Pacific. You won’t want to miss this one. The title is Picking Up the Pieces – What to do When the Unthinkable Happens.

David, Wendy, and Amber will talk about what to do (and not to do) when you suspect or find embezzlement in your practice, and what happens after embezzlement is confirmed.

To register, click HERE. If you want to catch up on our previous webinars (we had some great topics like Forensic Hiring and

PACE CE credit is available.

We look forward to having you back in our audience!

Several of our clients generously agreed to be interviewed about their experience being embezzled. Here is part of Wendy Askins’ interview with Dr. Kirk Specht, where Kirk talks about what made him suspicious.

Delegation versus Abdication

Delegation is essential to the financial well-being of a practice. The existence of well-trained clinical and administrative staff allows a practice’s doctors to focus on their unique (and high value) competencies.

The concept of clinical delegation is well-understood by dentists and is something that they first encountered in dental school.

However, delegation of the administrative functions in a practice is something that is normally encountered much later when a dentist becomes the owner of a practice, and it happens without the dentist having the benefit of any training.

In our webinars, we talk a lot about doing a better job of screening applicants before hiring.

MANY cases of embezzlement could have been avoided if the practice owner had only taken a bit more time to learn about the applicant. (For a spectacular example, look HERE at an Oregon woman accused of stealing from a dental office while she was awaiting trial for stealing $1 million from a medical office.

Dentistry has allowed itself to fall out of step with how most businesses hire. I hear lots of excuses from dentists about the casualness with which they hire, almost none of which make sense. For example, I often hear that there is a “shortage of good people in my area”. Even if this were true (and after the COVID-caused adjustments happening now I’m not sure it is), it might prompt you to “lower the bar” and hire someone you might not in other circumstances. However, you still need to know to what extent you have compromised your standards.

In my 30+ years of working with dentistry, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing immense growth in dentistry’s ability to deliver clinical care. Unfortunately, the ability to screen out dangerous applicants hasn’t progressed at all.

We are currently working on adding some background checking services to our product offerings and expect to have an announcement soon.

Sincerely,

We promised a return of our wildly popular webinar series return this month.

And we meant it! Wendy, Amber and David will be back on July 15 at 8:00 pm Eastern Time (5:00 pm Pacific).

And the topic is a humdinger — Steal and Conceal; What Serial Embezzlers Can Teach Us. The gang is going deep into our case files to show you some of the most voracious embezzlers we have encountered.

To register click HERE. If you want to catch up on our previous webinars (we had some great topics like Forensic Hiring and Reconcile or Reckless), you can access them at THIS LINK.

CE credit through PACE is available.

We look forward to having you back in our audience!

Several of our clients generously agreed to be interviewed about their experience being embezzled. Here is part of Amber Weber’s interview with Dr. Dominique Backus, where Dominique talks about the emotions she experienced.

The Danger of “References”

We often have dentists say that they ask for “references” or that they check “references.” Normally they are doing this to show that they are careful about who they hire.

I’m thrilled that, after a two-month hiatus, I will be doing another webinar with my delightful co-hosts, Amber Weber and Wendy Askins.

Doing webinars was Amber’s idea, when COVID provided dentists with a dollop of unexpected downtime. Our Power Hours were successful beyond what we ever imagined, with audience size approaching 3,000 people.

After six episodes in the next six weeks, it was time for us to take a break. There are a lot of hours that go into preparing for a webinar, and doing it weekly is definitely a challenge. At a time when the priority of many dentists was getting back to work and adjusting to practicing in the COVID era, we signed off with a promise to make a return in July.

So it’s July, and our preparations for our July 15 webinar are moving along nicely. We have a topic that I am really excited about, and as usual we will be offering lots of useful pearls for our audience. You can register using THIS LINK, and we look forward to “seeing” you in a couple of weeks.

Sincerely,

One of our team suggested that we should do a webinar. That webinar evolved into a series of six episodes that ran in April and May.

Our objective was to take advantage of enforced downtime to give dentists vital knowledge for running their practices. We also gave away plenty of toolbox items.

The series was a smashing success, with an audience exceeding 3,000 people.

It also became a true team effort. In addition to our on-camera hosts, Amber Weber, Wendy Askins and David Harris, 15 other team members at Prosperident were involved at some level.

We covered some great topics and were able to bring the unique perspective of Dentistry’s Embezzlement Experts.

If you missed a webinar, recordings of all of them are available on our website. Click on the links below to get there.

Over the past few weeks, I have increasingly been hearing some wonderful words.

Those words are often said almost apologetically and are along the lines of “I need to postpone our meeting because right now, I am really busy reopening my practice.”

If this is your situation, there is no need for contrition. Each dentist returning to practice represents a milestone in our society awakening from its hibernation, and hearing a dentist declare that they are back in business is a sweet sound indeed.

While the “new normal” has its share of complications like PPE, facility modifications for many, and patients waiting in their cars for appointments, we are thrilled to see you regaining your ability to do what you trained to do, and once again begin earning a living.

We at Prosperident are rejoicing in this hard-won victory against Covid-19, and we are here for you when you need us.

As our way of giving back to the dental community, until June 30, we are waiving our normal $139 fee for our Embezzlement Risk Assessment Questionnaire — please email us at requests@prosperident.com to take us up on this offer.

Sincerely,

April 8 webinar – The COVID Crisis: Use Downtime to Prevent Chaos

Join Prosperident’s David Harris and Amber Weber as they outline strategies for making use of enforced downtime to improve protection and enhance your practice’s financial well-being.

Want to make good use of your downtime? Our CEO’s book is available on AMAZON.

When I wrote last month about the impending storm coming from the Coronavirus, I don’t think I realized the full impact it would have on me personally.

I’ve never suffered from triskaidekaphobia, but that may change. In the month ending on March 13, I did four speaking engagements, which necessitated crossing the continent three times, with a total of 18 airplane rides.

What is significant about March 13? I arrived home from speaking in California at midnight of March 12. The next morning, I was in my office and felt slightly unwell. I looked online at the symptoms of COVID-19, and realized that they were consistent with how I was feeling. I called Public Health, and based on my symptoms and travel schedule, they sent me for testing right away. The next evening I got the call telling me that results were positive and that I was Nova Scotia’s first confirmed case (which is not how I wanted to enter the history books!).

Last week, after quarantining myself and with symptoms gone, I was retested. This test showed no coronavirus, so I also became my province’s first “recovered” patient.

For me, the symptoms were exceedingly mild, and not enough to even want to make me stay home from work. I’m so grateful that, after checking with the people I encountered before I had my first test, I do not seem to have infected a single person. I was particularly worried because I had sat with my octogenarian father at a basketball game, and had contact with several other seniors as well. Fortunately, all of them are well.

With a vaccine still some distance off, and infection rates climbing in the US and Canada despite the efforts of the authorities, the carnage from this disease is far from over. I’m thankful that my own COVID experience was unremarkable, but I do fear for humanity on this one.

I wish for your continued health and safety.

Sincerely,

Article Series

Part 2 of the articles David Harris is doing with Jean Patterson, CFE, CPA and Sandy Baird MBA on DentistryIQ on embezzlement is available HERE.

Here are some places where we will be speaking soon:

The coronavirus has been dominating the headlines lately, particularly as the virus appears to now have gained a foothold in North America. The oceans that once prevented intercontinental transmission of diseases seem unlikely to protect us in our very mobile 21st Century society.

One of the worst epidemics in history was the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-1919. This flu spread quickly between soldiers existing in crowded conditions in Europe, and then was disseminated broadly when those soldiers returned home after the end of World War 1, which probably represented the biggest mass migration of people to that point. Eventually, Spanish Flu affected 27% of the world’s population, with a mortality rate of close to 10%.

The spread of coronavirus has had far-reaching effects, including sudden concerns about the US economy that have had the markets in free-fall over the past week. The Tokyo Olympics seem to be in some jeopardy, and the demand for protective masks by people has put the mask supply for dental practices in jeopardy.

Hopefully, the intervention of modern medicine will make the mortality rate far less than what happened a century ago, along with developing a vaccine to protect the population. In the meantime, as someone who spends a lot of time on airplanes and in venues with large concentrations of people such as dental conferences, I am acutely aware of my vulnerability.

While I hesitate to draw any kind of comparison between a potentially deadly disease and embezzlement, some recent information released by the ADA confirms that we have a pandemic of our own taking place. Embezzlement numbers are up significantly from a decade ago, and the data suggest that close to 100% of dentists will be afflicted sooner or later.

Although embezzlement does not present the same kind of danger to society as the coronavirus does, to a victim the consequences can be devastating. So just like we wash our hands to protect ourselves from pathogens, when it comes to embezzlement the cure is vastly preferable to the disease.

I wish you both physical and financial well-being.

Sincerely,

Article Series

David Harris is collaborating with fraud investigator Jean Patterson, CFE, CPA and consultant Sandy Baird MBA on a series of articles for Dentistry iQ. The theme is how to use the financial information in your practice more effectively.

The first article is HERE.

Here are some places where we will be speaking soon:

I’m writing this shortly after Kobe Bryant’s tragic death in a helicopter crash was announced.

Whether you are a basketball fan or not, it was hard not to be impressed by Kobe’s skill, intensity, and his ability to win over the city of Los Angeles in a way that few celebrities have.

Basketball was never my sport growing up, but as the very proud father of a son who is a national-level basketball player, I’ve come to love the sport as an adult.

My son and I were fortunate to see Kobe play a couple of times, including one of his very last games in his home arena, the Staples Center in LA in 2016. He was battling a nagging ankle injury, and it was questionable whether he would be able to play.

Demonstrating the grit that made him such a decorated player, the 37-year-old shrugged off his injury and played. Kobe certainly gave 100% that night, scoring more than 20 points to the thunderous adoration of the crowd.

Kobe’s success extended well beyond basketball. He spoke several languages, was an accomplished musician, successful in business, was an Academy Award winner, and a devoted father to his four children, one of who perished in the crash with him.

The world is poorer today. RIP, Kobe.

Sincerely,

Podcast

David Harris was honored to be a guest on his friend Dr. Len Tau’s podcast. Check it out HERE.

Caren Irsuto pled guilty to embezzling over $600k from her dentist.

Here are some places where we will be speaking soon:

Welcome to 2020!

With decorations put away and offices open again after the holiday shutdown, today is the day when many of us turn our minds back to business.

2019 was a good year for embezzlers; a booming economy and lots of “how to” information on the internet created plenty of opportunity for them to ply their craft.

While many were caught (and you can read about these people in our Hall of Shame), plenty are still getting away with it.

Everybody knows that Prosperident can (stealthily) audit practices for embezzlement, but did you know that we also can help you improve your systems to protect you against being a victim?

Let’s make 2020 the year to stop these thieves in their tracks!

Sincerely,