Category: Prosperident Pulses

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Newsletter January 2021 






Hello, 2021! Full Steam Ahead



Like so many others, the dental community has endured a nearly year-long stress test. For the most part, dentistry's adaptability to change has been the foundation for its success in recovering from this unprecedented year. Although none of us wants to dwell on the year that was 2020, it did present us with an education and a few "silver linings" as we faced global societal changes and internal cracks, highlighted by the unusual circumstances that characterized the year.
 The internal and external trials of 2020 set us at Prosperident on the path of an internal review. Our current policies, products, and services were all put under the microscope to ensure that we kept pace with the changes around us. We have always been committed to remaining a valuable and contributing entity in the dental community. To this end, my team and I have been working with valued clients and outside consultants to ensure that now and in the future, inclusion, diversity, and respect for each other remain a part of our mandate.
 2021 will not be like 2020, thank goodness, nor will it be like 2019. The "exercise" of 2020 has delivered to us the remarkable gift of being grateful for change, no matter how difficult. Who we were, who we are, and whom we want to be will create a shift in how we all do business forever. Prosperident is not just a collection of experienced investigators, IT experts, and talented support staff. We are and have for over 30 years been all of those things and more. We are the total of all the energy, experience, and expertise that our team member brings to each investigation and service that we produce or perform. This you can rely on!
2021 will mark the beginning of fresh starts in many areas for both you and us. In January, Prosperident will launch a quarterly themed webinar series. The theme for winter 2021 is "Designing Your Post Covid Practice," and it reflects our commitment to no-cost education and CE's for all dentists, dental specialists, and dental practice owners. We have streamlined the registration process and concentrated on presenting topics meant to inform and educate you as you continue to reach your goal of having your most prosperous business year ever!
 If there is a silver lining to the events of 2020, Covid has created a wave of thoughtfulness and caring for each other that, while always a hallmark of the dental profession and Prosperident, seems more genuine and authentic now. This is the one gift offered by the past year's events that my team and I will hold close.
Please join Prosperident as we invite all of you to put 2020 in the rearview mirror and as we all forge ahead, both stronger and more connected than ever.
 Happy New Year!





 David Harris



Designing Your Post Covid Practice
Join us for our Winter 2021 webinar series. For information and registration please click HERE.
We are looking forward to "seeing" you on January 21!








Prosperident Inc. 888-398-2327 www.dentalembezzlement.com

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Newsletter December 2020 Season’s Greetings! The Holiday Season is upon us, and without a doubt, there will be a departure from all that we consider “normal” about our celebrations this year. Like many of you, I’ve been feeling a little bit overwhelmed during the Coronavirus pandemic. Although my team and I were able to work, we certainly feel the pain and uncertainty that the pandemic has caused, particularly for our friends in the dental community. I recently asked my team how Prosperident could best help you while you continue to face this unprecedented time of stress and uncertainty, especially going into this Holiday Season. The conversation that followed was inspiring, hopeful, and optimistic in ways that I couldn’t have imagined. Yay, team! In the upcoming months, I will be putting several of my team’s progressive and innovative ideas into action. We are excited to evolve, and we sincerely want to continue to be a valued part of your community. Please know that we are here for you, and we will be making every effort to be available to you in every way we can to help you with your businesses as we celebrate the holidays and move forward into a brand new year. The entire team at Prosperident wishes you and those you love a peaceful, joyous, and most of all, a safe and healthy holiday season. Sincerely, David Harris Prosperident Inc. 888-398-2327 www.dentalembezzlement.com

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November 2020 Next Webinar November 19! 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! Happy Halloween from Prosperident 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. Did you miss a previous newsletter? We archive them HERE. Big News! Our Embezzlement Risk Assessment Questionnaire has just received a major overhaul. Our research into the causes and correlates of embezzlement never ceases, and we have just incorporated the results of that research into the new version of the Questionnaire. The basic elements are still there; the Questionnaire consists of 37 yes/no completed online questions and takes less than 15 minutes. When someone takes it, they receive an overall score (we’ve simplified that a bit too) and an emailed report with details on a lot of the answers they provided and some recommendations based on their score. The Questionnaire normally costs $139, but until November 30, we are offering it to practice owners at no cost. TAKE THE QUESTIONNAIRE What is the Most Secure Practice Management Software? We are featuring excerpts from the upcoming second edition of David Harris’ book, Dental Embezzlement; the Art of Theft and the Science of Control. 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. READ MORE Something to Talk About… 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, David Harris We are Prosperident, Dentistry’s Embezzlement Experts 888-398-2327 www.dentalembezzlement.com

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October 2020 Next Webinar October 22! 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 Steal and Conceal; What Serial Embezzlers Can Teach Us), you can access them at THIS LINK. PACE CE credit is available. We look forward to having you back in our audience! A Minute with Scott Clifford 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. Did you miss a previous newsletter? We archive them HERE. How Big is the Embezzlement Problem? Over the next few months, we are featuring excerpts from the upcoming second edition of David Harris’ book, Dental Embezzlement; the Art of Theft and the Science of Control. 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. READ MORE Something to Talk About… 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, David Harris We are Prosperident, Dentistry’s Embezzlement Experts 888-398-2327 www.dentalembezzlement.com

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September 2020 Next Webinar Sept 16! 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 Steal and Conceal; What Serial Embezzlers Can Teach Us), you can access them at THIS LINK. PACE CE credit is available. We look forward to having you back in our audience! Dental Podcast Hear dental industry leader Interview David Harris in a wide-ranging and thought-provoking discussion. Click HERE to play the episode. Did you miss a previous newsletter? We archive them HERE. Profiles of the Embezzler – the Narcissistic Sociopath, the Hero and the Sugar Momma These are some of the common profiles of embezzlers. Many thieves display sociopathic characteristics, and also markers of a narcissist. Psychological literature recognizes this combination as a narcissistic sociopath. The accepted traits of an antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy) include: Superficial charm and intelligence. Unreliability. Untruthfulness. Lack of remorse. Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior. Delusions of invincibility. Failure to learn by experience. Failure to follow any life plan. READ MORE Something to Talk About… 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, David Harris We are Prosperident, Dentistry’s Embezzlement Experts 888-398-2327 www.dentalembezzlement.com

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August 2020 Next Webinar Aug 19! 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 Steal and Conceal; What Serial Embezzlers Can Teach Us), you can access them at THIS LINK. PACE CE credit is available. We look forward to having you back in our audience! Hear From an Embezzlement Victim 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. Did you miss a previous newsletter? We archive them HERE. 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. READ MORE Something to Talk About… 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, David Harris We are Prosperident, Dentistry’s Embezzlement Experts 888-398-2327 www.dentalembezzlement.com

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Dental Prosperident Pulse from Prosperident Issue #96 — July 2020 Webinars Are Back! 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! Hear From an Embezzlement Victim 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. Did you miss a previous newsletter? We archive them HERE. The Danger of “References” A client of ours recently asked us this question: I have an interviewee and I would like to talk to her past employers. She’s been at a local restaurant for the last 4 years, but it closed in April. What would you recommend to do to check employment? She listed 3 references from the restaurant with their contact info. Would you recommend to contact them? Our client is someone who makes every effort to run his practice properly, and his dilemma forces us to deal with a seminal issue in background checking – who should we be speaking with? 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. READ MORE Something to Talk About… 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, David Harris We are Prosperident, Dentistry’s Embezzlement Experts 888-398-2327 www.dentalembezzlement.com