What Happens in Vegas Ends in Prison

[0:00] You are listening to the Dental Practice Owner's Podcast brought to you by Prosperident. From our unique perspective as dentistry's embezzlement experts, Prosperident's team can bring you the information that is important to practice owners. The Dental Practice Owner's Podcast brings you strategies, tools and tips that you can use and dentistry's thought leaders as guests. So sit back, relax and listen to Prosperident's Amber Weber, Wendy Askins and David Harris

[0:31] talk about the issues that matter to you. Hello everybody, we're starting another webinar tonight and this one's going to be great. The title is certainly attention grabbing. It says what happens in Vegas ends in prison. And we'll discuss why we picked that title in a little bit. I wanted to mention a few things before we begin.

[1:02] First of all, my two usual colleagues aren't here with me tonight. Amber Weber is speaking at the California Dental Association and knock them dead, Amber. Wendy Askins had a death in the family so she's off tonight. Instead, we have with us somebody who normally is behind the scenes but came on camera for us tonight, Sheila O'Driscoll.

[1:25] And we also have a couple of guests who I'll introduce in just a minute. Just a few things about tonight. We're going to go till about 15 minutes past the next hour. We will have some time for questions at the end so please feel free to use it. And we're running both questions and answers and chat. If there's something that you want us to address, the Q&A button on your screen is the one you

[1:50] use for that and chat is a way to just share your thoughts or give feedback or encouragement. And as always, we are recording this session. If you have to leave early, you can check it out later. It'll be available on our website by Tuesday and Sheila normally sends out a post communication after where she'll give you the link of where to find that. But we will have it available in perpetuity.

[2:17] And I also want to mention that if you're with us live, you can enjoy continuing education credit through PACE. And that's thanks to our friends at Altura Parodontics in Colorado. The other thing I want to mention is we have a wonderful guest next month and you really don't want to miss this. June 22nd at 8 Eastern 5 Pacific, we're going to have a very dear friend of mine,

[2:43] Deborah Engelhard Nash. She is a practice management consultant of incredible stature and going to be a great presentation. I cannot wait to have the other Deborah with us. But speaking of Deborah, I want to introduce a couple of special guests. The first one you may have seen before, he's Scott Clifford.

[3:07] Scott is what's called a supervising examiner and that is the highest level of examiner that prosperity has. Scott is an unbelievable investigator. He handles some of our toughest cases. His insight and you're going to get to see it tonight is just breathtaking. And our other very special guest is Dr. Deborah Staten.

[3:31] She's there on the screen. She is a dentist in Las Vegas and she was the victim in the embezzlement that we're going to tell you about tonight. A couple of things about Deborah, you see her there in uniform so you know what her part time job is. She is Dr. Deborah Staten.

[3:49] She is also major Deborah Staten in the United States Army Reserve. She got into dentistry a little bit later in life. She started as a dental assistant and eventually did her GED, went back to college, went to dental school and became a dentist. So she's covered a lot of positions in a dental practice and you'll see some of that experience coming through.

[4:15] She and I have something in common and you see her in uniform there. This is me in the 1980s and I'll say a few things. First of all, these glasses were really good at birth control. Yeah, they kept people away like you wouldn't believe. But yeah, I spent my time in a green suit as well. So Deborah, at this point I'll thank you for your service.

[4:41] And there's one more actor in this trilogy who's not with us tonight. Her name is Daniel Powers and the reason Daniel is not with us is she's currently in prison. And how she got there is really what we're going to talk about tonight. So what we're going to do tonight is play a little bit of recorded video that Scott and Deborah have done in advance. And we've got several slides where Sheila interviewed them and got their comments on various things

[5:10] just to give this a little bit of structure. So we're going to play a video clip and then after that we'll probably talk about it a little bit and then we'll go to the next one. Again if you have questions use that Q&A box and we'd love to hear them. So let's start by finding out about the relationship that Deborah and Daniel Powers, the embezzler had.

[5:34] Daniel and I had met in an office prior to her working for me and I just thought she was amazing. She was really good at selling treatment and I felt like it was a match made in heaven. So I had offered her to come to my practice when I opened it and she accepted. And of course we were a start-up practice so the as we grew it was just wonderful and we grew easily and it was I contributed that to her as well as to my husband John working in the practice because we had a very dynamic friendly environment where patients felt comfortable

[6:12] and warm and it was easy for us to become more and more successful. Although over time I felt like it should have been better and so over time Daniel and I's relationship started to weather because of the office we were incredible friends too. We went to the gym together. We went on vacations together. She would take care of my son when I was out of town.

[6:43] There was she would take care of my dog if we left on family vacation. So I trusted her wholeheartedly with everything conversation wise I would communicate and can fight in her and literally she was my go-to person at the office that I would figure things out with them and so the bond was really really there and she was very interested and very supportive of me as a friend and as a as an employee employer but now in hindsight that's very obvious on why it's because so that she could be in the know of everything so she continued immediately

[7:19] every situation that was happening. So manipulation and Scott you've seen lots of embezzlement. How typical or atypical is Deborah's story about the relationship between embezzler and embezzled? It's pretty typical you and that's I think what what really gets to the to the betrayal part of embezzlement is that a thief really doesn't generally want to be abrasive because they want to keep their job if they found a good mode to steal

[7:56] and you know so for that reason they for the most part try to maintain a friendly and close working relationship. Absolutely so moving from there the next question is well how did Deborah get suspicious and let's let's let her tell that story. The investigation started in 2019 but we were a little suspicious that something was happening for at least a year prior to that although my husband and I were felt rather green at what we

[8:31] were doing and and we were happy with the success that was happening although what we kept saying to each other was well if she's stealing it can't be much because we're doing okay and and I think that was more out of scarcity because we didn't know we weren't convinced we could do it ourselves without her and so we just felt like we can we we couldn't do better without her so we're just going to tolerate this. Yeah Deborah as you've as you've thought about this more after that interview

[9:10] did did you know is there anything you want to add?

[9:17] Yeah there's a lot I mean it's there's so many wonderful great people in this industry for us I think it was literally just the scarcity and not being willing to trust anybody at that point even ourselves because that's really what I want to back to. We're so capable now I mean and and now that I I've doubled the size of my team since then double the size of my practice and and I have an amazing team since then and so in hindsight I just kept I kept baby in a corner I did all by myself I kept myself in my own corner

[9:54] instead of knowing that I could trust other people and there's good people that can help do this business I mean it does take a village we can't do it alone so yeah but I just didn't have to trust that one. You know you raise a really good point and it's it's something I emphasize when I do speaking to live audiences I say you know let's let's remember that it's a really small proportion of dental employees who cause all this trouble and the overwhelming majority of people who work in dental practices are are terrific people who are there for all the right

[10:28] reasons and it's just the the very odd rotten apple that causes the problem and you know I'm I'm so glad to hear that you're happy with your team and you've you know you've got it the way you want it. So Deborah called us she she called me we we started gathering information and we put ace investigator Scott Clifford on the case and Scott got into it and he he formed some some impressions very quickly of of what might be happening and let's hear what he told what he told us. I've been doing this for a while so I know some things to look at some of the

[11:08] high points first and within the first few reports that I pulled I really got the sense that there was something egregiously wrong with the data and and what I was seeing. There were some pretty clear markers in there for me from my eye not to everybody's but to my eye when I started looking at that case I was like yeah this is this is going to be significant.

[11:39] Scott anything you want to you want to add now? No not really it it it really struck me from the very beginning you know when we first start a case we start by pulling a bunch of reports that's what we do and then determine from there what's going on and and as you pull them you you look at your screen you can see certain things that I you know obviously can't really go into in this forum but but some of the first things that I saw were not not satisfactory there was something very wrong and I knew it right away.

[12:14] Scott's kind of like a bloodhound I mean his his nose his his instinct is always first class and so he said he was seeing it right away.

[12:27] So the next thing that happens in a case is the investigator goes back to the client and says yeah this you know this is embezzlement and it it might be significant and of course then the client reacts to that and let's let's hear what what Deborah said about how she felt next. When Scott first told us that embezzlement was was in fact happening we weren't surprised at the fact that it was happening because we knew that and that's why we were having conversations with Scott but what we were shocked by was the amount of embezzlement

[13:03] that was happening um and the way that it was happening and so her um I was incredibly hurt because of the the relationship that we had built with her over the years because um because I just she was more than just a an office employee to me and so to know that the amount of embezzlement that had been going on and for the time period it was going on was just that's what crushed me it wasn't so much shock it was just the fact that the betrayal that had happened. Yeah we we hear that a lot from people you know and uh Deborah I comment I get a lot from from

[13:47] a dentist when they you know when they see what's really happened is you know I was at her daughter's wedding three months ago and of course now it's just starting to dawn on me how much of that wedding I really paid for um you know we we in fact I was I was talking with a with a new client today and you know the the staff members daughter's wedding actually came up in that conversation um so there's there's betrayal there's a lot of things one one thing we didn't talk about is is the actual amount of money that was stolen and I think that's

[14:24] that's a public matter now isn't it we can we can give a a ballpark there. It was almost identical to what I owed in student loans which was like 265,000 or something okay 256,256,000 that's that's kind of an interesting comparison isn't it you know that she she stole the amount that you know the amount I was still paying off for my education um yeah so so a lot of money and and over what period of time did this happen how how long was she stealing um I believe our records she was employed with me for

[15:05] four years and she would know five years and she was stealing four of them yeah so you know there's a there's a there's a definite cynicism in in these people um because you know on the one hand they're smiling and nodding and and you know trying to present like the ideal office manager and on the other hand their hand is in your pocket so I I totally get why that's hurtful now Scott Clifford has been with us for um around 10 years uh he has found millions of dollars of embezzlement in his distinguished

[15:45] career here and he knows a lot about thieves and uh let's let's hear a bit of that their first thought is to not get caught and their second thought is to keep stealing they they really want to be able to continue because it's not like a burglary where you can just you know go to a different house if one of them's locked so they really have to keep their job and so in order to do so a lot of times some things in the officer run really well uh and that includes interpersonal relationships and so a lot of times you'll see a thief um be very friendly very

[16:24] easygoing great with the patients you know a lot of things are really good about that person because they don't want to upset the cart that brings them the money and so that for that reason that's it's just not that uncommon um I think my longest tenured uh thief that I ever caught was 35 year employee for a dental office so yeah not not uncommon at all you don't want to be angry and upset and and and drama filled and although we do find some of those in thieves but um a lot of times you you find some very very nice people with good relationships that are that

[17:01] are the thief Scott you made such a good point there and this is this is um I think really important to understanding thieves uh embezzlement is a lot more like a dripping tap than a busted pipe you know the amounts that are stolen each month are relatively small and you know it's just that over time if if somebody's taking two thousand or three thousand dollars a month over time it it can add up to be a massive amount of money but it's it it it tends to be really small and um that helps it fly under the radar it's also a repeated act I mean this is the one

[17:44] of the big differences between embezzlement and most other crimes is most other crimes are committed once embezzlement is is repeatedly victimizing the same person over and over and the amounts do tend to ramp up they they usually start small and then get bigger and bigger and bigger and it's not that they're getting bolder and bolder it's that they're realizing that they're not getting caught yeah yeah they kind of they kind of find that the the under the radar threshold that they can go to if anybody's wondering the ultimate outcome

[18:18] you can see it over Scott's shoulder um Danielle was was sentenced to eight years in prison so the dental profession will be safe from her for a while but um you know there it wasn't exactly a linear path from from Debra's office to prison as well we'll talk about in a minute but yeah you know it's it's not like thieves take fifty thousand dollars in a month um you know as Scott says it it can start very small they they kind of work their way up to the point where they think they're taking as much per month as they can without being noticed and

[18:52] then they just plateau there then there's the question how did it happen well um there there were some really interesting comments from both Scott and Debra on on methodology that we'll share with you we were running a software in our office that literally had um she had found the loophole in the software to be able to do what she was doing and keep us in the dark and that was one thing that Scott found the way she was manipulating the computers and literally Scott got on the phone with the maker of that software and and this whole thing ended

[19:25] up changing a security parameter with that software and they sent out an update so that that what she did is no longer able to be done on that software remember that Scott and it's not a small software either and no I wasn't aware that they actually implemented the change this is news to me today well the the interesting part about about that particular case is yes you when you are in Las Vegas and yes you do take in a lot of cash by virtue of the demographic um and it's not all just gambling it's you know very tip

[19:57] oriented service oriented um uh business culture there and but even though she was stealing virtually all of the cash that wasn't enough for her so we found evidence that she was actually eliciting the patient base to bring in more cash and then giving them discounts if they did so not only she couldn't just steal the already plentiful cash she had to steal more but in order to do that she had to convince people to bring it in in order to do that she traded away even more of dr. satan's money

[20:35] um i'll make a couple of observations here you know first of all what scott just said is so true if i work at your front desk and i want to change the way that people pay i can make that happen by simply floating some some discounts that the doctor is not aware of the second thing is this case is in my mind a little unusual compared to what we see most of the time now i mean there was there was a time when the only thing that thieves stole was cash in the dental practice and you know 20 or 25 years ago it was very hard for somebody to cash a check that had somebody else's

[21:15] name on it and um you know their credit credit card payments and things like that were a lot tougher to adulterate than they are now one one thing that we see now and i expect i'll get a an affirmative nod from scott on this one is we see a lot of theft of checks and uh people finding a way to get in get their fingers into credit card payments as well so there are you know we when we're thinking about how to protect ourselves against embezzlement we've got to expand our thinking beyond just cash scott any any thoughts

[21:57] credit card theft and manipulations of credit card um you know people think of safe payment types um and i go through the list of payment types that people think are safe and i have a case where i can show that they are not um and the thieves have become very creative especially when some offices don't take cash okay well i still have to steal you know and they'll they'll figure out a way um there is no there is no safe payment type yeah that's that's uh chilling but uh but 100 accurate you know thieves thieves can find a

[22:41] way to attack any kind of payment type even electronic funds transfers and scott i i think it was a case you had a couple of years ago where somebody had successfully redirected efts and the interesting thing there was even after they were fired by the practice money was still going to the thief you know it was it was like this gift that kept on giving yeah yeah cutting them off from the practice did not cut them off from the electronic funds transfers that were still pouring in yeah it it took i i forget the i forget the number of months but i'm i'm

[23:14] thinking it was around six months um until the office realized that there was money still going into the thieves account you know after they were long gone i'm one one thing i'll mention for the audience where my thinking has changed in the past year you know i always thought that electronic funds transfers were a pretty good way for a practice to receive money um we actually don't recommend payment by electronic funds transfers anymore i'm much happier seeing checks come into your practice and if you if you want to read up on why i think that there's a there's

[23:49] a post on our website where i where i outline my reasons but i think um they the electronic funds transfers first of all uh post some accounting challenges for the practice and secondly as i say they're not they're not the safe haven that probably most people actually think they are so um some some some good reading there the other one of course that is a really bad idea in terms of how your practice can get paid is what's called a vcc or a virtual credit card so that's where insurance companies send to the practice usually it comes on the

[24:24] eob they give you a 16 digit credit card number and conceptually it's like a it's like a prepaid visa and the way you get paid is you enter that um visa number into your merchant terminal and there's a lot of stuff that goes wrong with these and um we we recommend that if your practice is getting paid that way to quote a former first lady just say no deborah have you seen these things or were you did you did you ever accept those in your practice virtual credit cards yes i was just asking john about that we've we've almost eliminated

[25:04] all efts we um we got up on board with them and then we've we've now we're we're desperately trying to get rid of all of them concealment and when when i talk to people about embezzlement i always say there are two parts to it there's there's this the steel part where in this case deborah's property became daniel power's property and then there's the concealment of how it's hidden afterwards and and you know it's a lot easier to understand embezzlement when you kind of think of those two distinct components and and here's what here's what deborah and scott said about

[25:44] concealment this case it what's interesting about it is the simplistic manner in which the embezzlement occurred i mean when it boiled down to it it was a very simple method with a one little switch that allowed her to conceal all of it and it was it was i don't want to say elegant but it was elegant in its simplicity um it it wasn't super convoluted it was just simple and but well concealed you know and i can't give away much in this form about how to do that of course um but i think that that's the thing is is no matter how much you think

[26:32] you are protected against embezzlement a fraudster will figure out a way if you've got one in your office and that's why every little thing matters um you know if you find somebody in a dishonest act saying that they went you know they they had to go to a funeral but there was no funeral but they had to they had to leave for a day that's a dishonest act even though it has nothing to do with embezzlement it still shows dishonesty and you really want to pay attention to all those little cues because those are what's going to

[27:05] a lot of times reveal that there's something wrong in the finances of practice he's right it was incredibly simple and and it was very disappointing to me in the end on how simple it was that that we could have paid attention and known that something was going on all and it really just boils back down to the fact that when you don't know when a dentist doesn't know how to do and what must be done in their front office to keep track of everything that's happening is that it just it really sets up a bad opportunity for thieves to take over

[27:43] so it's so critical it's you know dental school is difficult to get to where we are is difficult and um and learning how to do the paperwork side of it is is difficult but there are wonderful people that are be happy to teach and learn

[28:03] you know i i think sometimes that people who don't have a whole lot of contact with embezzlement think that the embezzlers model is a little more simplistic than it is what i always explain to people is embezzlement is a really interactive crime so you have a thief who knows their doctor really well knows their patterns knows what they look at and what they don't and then designs the stealing to bypass the doctor scrutiny and the analogy i use sometimes is it's kind of like you're playing poker with somebody but your cards are face up and theirs are hidden you know who's

[28:40] likely to walk away with with money from from that table um and um deborah i i i expect you to agree if i said uh daniel knew exactly what your systems of control were and she just navigated around them i um allowed daniel to help me create them yeah okay yeah but just so her cards were faced down and mine were all faced up but yeah that's that's a very good point and and one maybe that we don't make enough you know not only do they know the control systems in a lot of cases they are the control systems in other words you were you were counting on daniel to protect your interests

[29:28] and um and you know she she used that to advantage and you know it always amazes me the number of people who you know keep in touch years later i mean one of our regular co-hosts who i mentioned is not here tonight wendy askings wendy has this this legion of doctors she's worked for who you know all keep in touch with her and you know there were christmas cards exchanged and and and all kinds of things and um this case was not all that different and and when it was going on i remember scott saying to me several times you

[30:05] know i really like uh dr state knew i'm working with and you know i i just want to um you know i want to make sure she gets the the best outcome possible from this um but here are some of the comments about these two working with each other scott's been scott's wonderful he's um um he's ruthlessly honest which i absolutely love and adore he's super duper smart and um it was very entertaining and enlightening i learned a lot through this whole process i remember times where i would really be bent and and and really disturbed by this and he would

[30:44] remind me on how how fast things were going to turn around for me now that she now that i could find someone to actually do their job do their job correctly um not only would i be making more money because she wasn't stealing it but i would be i would just be much better off in the long run because the energy would be on point and and he was so right as it wasn't just money that daniel was stealing and the outcome of this we discovered how much energy she was actually putting into stealing and so it left her very little time to do her job completely and thoroughly

[31:23] so there was multiple reasons why i wasn't more successful because there was claims that weren't going out or there was treatment plans that weren't being closed because she was really just targeting people that she could get to pay cash so there was lots of opportunity for me to grow and be more successful and i'm thankful for scott for pointing that out to me because i really honed in on that going forward but going back to the relationship the working relationship with scott he he enlightened me so much taught me

[31:56] things about my system that i wasn't aware of and um and really brought to light how important it is to be more connected and not trust someone full heartedly just because i don't know the information

[32:15] yeah and a point debor makes that that is so true is that stealing is work i mean it takes effort it takes time and thieves do one of two things they either work a lot of extra hours which is something we see as well or they just neglect their day job because they're so busy stealing and that means that the damage they can create goes well beyond the money they took it also extends into kind of lost opportunity and debor i'm i'm so happy to hear about doubling the size of your practice since she left i mean it you know it it it points to the talent that you have

[32:52] and how uh how much she was really holding you back

[33:00] yeah that's such an understatement i am you know i i got started so late in this in this career that um it's sad to me that i wasted so many years before i was able to be brave enough and do what we're doing now and but you know it is what it is and that's okay it's it's i'm catching up i'm catching up i've always been catching up being that i got started at 40 now i'm 50 and i'm i'm going to kick ass it's okay awesome i am i am thrilled for you um so you know you heard you heard how deborah felt about working with scott let's uh let's hear the other side of the

[33:43] story it's just such a personable individual um you know i i talked to her and i'm just i'm just comfortable and that's part of what made me believe that as soon as we got rid of the thief that she would be wildly successful she's just so genuine and fun and funny um we had some great conversations that had nothing at all to do with dentistry or money or embezzlement we just talked i can't wait to go out to vegas i i'm still planning to go there in in in july we have a lunch marked on our calendars um which is going to be fun i get to see your new office but um

[34:27] just a warm very smart very driven individual um and just just a pleasure to work with one of my favorite clients of all time wow that is uh that that is nice um so we finish our investigation whenever we finish an investigation the next thing that happens is that our report goes to people like the police and and to deborah's insurance company because she she had a a fairly modest amount of insurance coverage um that that she was able to to cash in on one thing i always tell people about embezzlement is that embezzlement in a dental practice is a

[35:12] really complicated crime you know and um the the police detectives who are working on it really do not have the background or for that matter the the available hours to dig into it the way it needs to happen and one of our big jobs is to put together a report that spoon feeds them so that they can do their job and that's what happened here and i i can tell you scott's reports um are exemplary in their in their clarity and their and their detail and you can you can see exactly what happened next the prosper adent report itself was the key

[35:53] component to her actually paying the price in not only my case but in the um the second case that was filed against her that prosper adent also did a report on without the report nothing would have happened because of the overwhelming evidence that scott was able to create and and produce and and it was beyond a reasonable doubt just within the report it was just a matter of the da taking all of that knowledge and and caring enough to present it in a way that was that was enlightening to the to the jurors or the the judge um it was scott was

[36:33] phenomenal in laying out in and really highlighting like even statistics he showed statistics of of the amount of cash that was going through my office versus what should be going through a normal dental office um and there's just one thing i want to pick up in there um to to misquote britney spears whoops she did it again yeah she she got danielle got fired by debora and the next thing we know she's working across town well what do you think she's doing when she's working across town um stealing again and scott

[37:17] will have some comments on it um in in a minute deborah do you want to tell us about the picture that's on the screen right now that's another picture from for me um yeah that's actually a patient's payment after danielle no longer worked for me this patient came in for their appointment um and they paid in straight up cash because they were trying to do that they thought they had to do that because then we get their discount and and sure enough we looked at the sign treatment plan and that's how much money they owed but um we were just kind of shocked to see it happening

[38:00] cash because danielle had left and so we just never really saw that happen too often yeah so you you really weren't taking in very much cash at all when she was there um no i don't think scott actually got to audit my bank account but i'm sure the cash deposits were nothing like what open dental said they were yeah and and imagine how how much of those uh $100 bills ended up in your bank account now that danielle was no longer there yeah um yeah well i i believe 100 of them happen now but but patients don't pay much

[38:40] in cash like that even though i'm in vegas that doesn't happen like that this often yeah i think we're back to the national the national ratio or whatever it is four percent is that what it was scott about four i think that certain demographics in certain cities are going to have a little bit higher maybe a little bit lower um but but four percent is fairly typical if you were to average it and my average at the time was double oh yeah you got up to 11 percent of your money coming in with cash at one point of course you didn't get to keep much of it but yeah

[39:13] oh my goodness yeah and you you both raised an interesting point because i get asked that question a lot like you know how much cash should i be taking in and you heard scott give the the average but there's a huge caveat to that and it depends where your practice is and who your patients are for example if you're a if you're a gerodontist and you have a whole lot of senior patients um a lot of them are still paying cash because they've just never quite gotten on the on the bandwagon of paying electronically if you're somewhere where there are a lot of immigrant

[39:49] farm workers um a lot of them will pay cash because they may not even have bank accounts and typically they're paid in cash uh so you know that that four percent is a um is a very broad brush and you know i've seen practices that take in 10, 12, 14 percent in cash and i've seen some that that take in less than one percent and it just depends on on situational stuff so um deba told us a little bit on on video about what it was like after daniel left the practice and and there are some good gems here

[40:30] over time after daniel left we had a certain breed of patients that would come prepared to pay cash for their appointments um but you know scott that when we were cleaning up and we found piles of paperwork in the cabinets and all that we actually found some cash i mean it was like three hundred dollars or something but obviously she had taken some money that she didn't even remember she took and we found it wow

[41:05] so we we mentioned that uh this this was not daniel's last rodeo um scott ended up doing another investigation on her and found she was stealing again i'm really tired of investigating the same suspect more than once frankly yeah the um deba was was keeping tabs on daniel's whereabouts and discovered that she had gotten another job and uh she so she we were able to make contact with her new employer uh and did a short investigation and she hadn't been there very long and she was already stealing um and so we uh i did the same sort of report it was a different method though

[41:50] because you know she is not that it's not that daniel is stupid right she knows the dental business and it's a shame that she used her powers for evil because she would have been had she not stolen she would have been a good employee um because she knows the ins and outs and and and this other densities use a different software so she could not use the same technique that she used with dr statin um and even if it was the same software if he had different processes and protocols then doctor then then doctor statin did then she still would have morphed her

[42:28] you know she's a fraudster they find a way to fraud um and so even though it was a different method it was more of a a smash and grab than than a really concealed method like like she was using with deba but uh but yeah we got her in the second case as well and it didn't even end there um at that point and sorry just for the benefit of the audience one one thing that people don't always realize is how slowly the wheels of justice move in other words a lot of times when somebody catches an embezzler more or less ready handed in their practice they kind of expect the police to

[43:06] come in slap the handcuffs on the person and take them away and that's not exactly how it works you know and and among other things covid really jammed up the court system you know the the the justice system never moves fast but during covid and you can you can just try to picture the logistics of having a jury trial you know in a in a courtroom you typically have 25 to 30 people at a minimum and having to space them all out six feet apart because of uh infection protocols you know it was very hard to do so justice moves slowly and it

[43:46] typically takes two to three years for somebody to get their feet held to the the legal fire after they steal and during that time they are wandering around with the constitutional presumption of innocence so in this case it got a little too hot for Danielle in dentistry so she left that and she went to Deborah I'm thinking it was a furniture store or it was hitting an air conditioning right yeah yeah so she she she went into a totally different line of work and of course the next thing she did was steal and I actually had a conversation with her next victim

[44:23] who was kind of telling me about her antics you know it was a as Scott said the you know the the the spots change on the leopard but the the hunger for raw meat doesn't really so she was stealing and in a you know in a different methodology in a different industry but she she was back to roll tricks so

[44:52] you know everybody's interested in hearing what happened but one of the most important things that they want to hear is what Deborah learned from this and what she's doing differently now and um we we got some great comments from her on that let's hear this so some advice for a new dentist starting out would be to learn how to do everything everything from the beginning while the business is beginning or or don't even become a practice owner until you know how the front office works

[45:30] it's so very important to be able to analyze your numbers to know why the adjustments are being made to know why to know what your collection rate is and off of your treatment and to understand where to keep the checks and balances so that you are earning what you're worth the thing that I learned the most from this experience was to to know that there's way more to being a great dentist than just drilling filling and billing it's very important to to continue to have a great culture within your office and trust people

[46:15] one thing I I guess I can say I learned to do was to not let someone to not hold someone's mistakes against everybody else going forward um I still trust and I still allow and delegate and I do not micromanage because nobody wants to work for someone that does that um but I learned how to analyze and look at things from behind at the thousand foot view and to be able to see if anything isn't working properly wow there was a lot of wisdom packed into that that minute and a half of video Deborah um

[46:53] yeah there was although I I don't know that this gets mentioned later David but I have this overwhelming need to say it is um it's also very very important to check a criminal's record it's I I know in the state of Nevada how to do that but I don't know how it is across the country but when you're hiring someone it's so easy to just go on and check people's criminal records and I learned here in the state of Nevada it's not just the um the district court but also there's the

[47:29] why do I I just point down that there's district and then there's um criminal there's criminal and district and so you have to check both records because what I also learned in this process is she was originally charged in criminal and then the case appears is dismissed that's generally because she actually was convicted of that and then it moves over to the district or the yeah from criminal to district and then district takes over the actual trial process so there's two different systems to check in but it's public record in the state of Nevada

[48:04] as well I mean anyways I don't know about other states but it was such a simple search to do and I do it on every person I hire now I always at least check their criminal record if they have one that I move on to district yeah that's that's so true um I will give the audience a really chilling statistic 70 million Americans so that equates to one in four adults as a criminal record so if you don't check for that it's exactly what Debra said you're playing Russian roulette and sooner or later you're going to lose you know there are the the the best way to

[48:45] check a criminal record is that there are companies that will do background checking for Dennis we we've sent some people occasionally to one called besthire.com but there are lots of other ones as well you know if you're if you're stuck for a name you can you can look up besthire but the the danger of checking criminal records in Nevada is that somebody may have a criminal record in California and then they moved to Nevada and if you only check Nevada you will miss their California records so to me the the best way to do that is to hire somebody and

[49:21] they'll check all 50 states plus Puerto Rico and Guam and you know all the all the other places where a criminal record could hide the the other thing I'll mention to Debra of course is some people have federal criminal records so there's a separate registry for that again um yeah there there and you know unfortunately there's no web there's no website you can go to and find this stuff um you know it really the only reasonable way to do it is to hire somebody you know that actually reminds me of something David um it was a Facebook post where someone

[50:00] said something about reviews of it was around the the whole time this this thing happened someone had said I wish I think I commented I wish that we could review employees like employees can review employers because we can get a bad rap in there and someone said we do it's prosper again and when I saw that comment that's how I found you because I didn't know about prospering I know that was a thing to to find bad people okay yeah most of our audience probably knows this but I'll mention it anyway we keep part of our website called the hall of shame

[50:38] yes that's as soon as I saw that that's why I was like oh my gosh she's gonna be on that and she is now um so yeah it's it's called the hall of shame we have I think the last time I counted about 740 embezzlers there and there are a lot more that for various reasons we we can't put on there but as soon as as soon as somebody's stealing becomes public record we uh we we get them up there pretty fast and yeah when you when you hire people it's a really really good idea to check the hall of shame as well and um one of the things I'll caution audience members on is a

[51:15] lot of embezzlers will change their name you know they'll if they were using their married name before they'll revert to their maiden name or they'll um you know they'll do something to try to make it so that a casual search won't find them and that's why we put up things like pictures and birth dates and and as as much stuff as we can to help you um you know help help you if somebody's in that hall of shame to find them uh and I get calls every couple of months from somebody who says yeah you know I was uh just kind of cruising

[51:49] around the internet last night and I stumbled on your hall of shame and holy crap my office managers on there and we you know we get those calls with some regularity and so I thank you Debra it's a it's a good resource and one that people should know about um so then there's this picture and uh this this caused a lot of joy in our office I can tell you um I think I think we have a video where there's a little bit of description on it but uh I I know Debra's comments after the fact will be great too let's let's play the video first though

[52:23] yeah she's in cuffs and and this photo was actually taken by Debra um and she was there for um you know she knew that the that that Danielle had a meeting with her attorney and so she was at the attorney's office and and uh she got arrested outside of that meeting and uh snapped the picture and then texted it to me Debra and I text um throughout this whole thing and and she texted that to me uh with a caption that was you know I got justice um justice absolute justice although in that particular photo she did get a jail for the night just for the night which was

[53:09] really aggravating and and frustrating and because um you know no one feels the wrath and the pain the way that I do um not just monetarily but um overall on the the whole betrayal of everything that happened and and and knowing that I had told her at one point that if she ever were to steal from me that I would spend every last dime that it took to make sure that she paid the price and um but apparently that she didn't believe me you know to me though there's there's no better justice on the planet than doing a take down

[53:49] outside somebody's attorney's office um you know when when Debra when you managed to make all this happen I mean we you know it's it's not all that often that we we cheer here at head office but we were that day um because that was that was just such a great way to do it and yeah she went to jail for the night but um her her liberty was temporary and it did catch up with her but yeah what a what a what a great way to do it uh so so that's uh you know that's one of my favorite take down pictures of all time um I also want to mention that I I know that

[54:28] Dr. Staten seems like she was just gung-ho on prosecution and was going to go to the ends of the earth to put this person in jail that wasn't always the case if you recall Debra when we first had our first conversation you knew that something was untoward and I asked you how much do you think it was and the number that you gave me was was very very low in comparison to what we really found and you were very forgiving you were very compassionate you understood her situation and and you know we were talking about you know a 10 to $20,000 figure and

[55:07] you were like if that's it then you know I'm just not interested in putting her in jail and then when we found out the real number that's when you became you threw on your cape and you became super detective you really wanted to nail her at that point it was just understandable but I just want the audience to know that that Debra was not just out for blood from the very start she she had compassion still for for the suspect you know Scott you're so right when I found out that like the equivalent that she stole was almost identical to the student loan

[55:46] debt that I had at the time I just was I was like there's no way she's getting away with this I'm so living up to my word if I will spend every last dime to put you in prison and and I'm proud to say that's where she sits today yeah you've you've done a lot for dentistry with that and also for for sharing your story with us tonight so at this point we're going to take some questions and and just a few reminders submit them through zoom if you enjoyed tonight we would love you forever if you left us a five star review and you can do it right there at

[56:27] prosperity.com slash review us also the registration is open for our next session and again it's Debra Engelhardt Nash you've got to hear this lady speak what what what comes out of her mouth should almost inevitably be carved on a stone tablet somewhere I've never met somebody who um has the the the depth of understanding and the intellect that that she does about dentistry Debra's a consultant her husband Ross Nash is a is a very well known cosmetic dentist and she's been a president she's been the president of the academy of dental management consultants

[57:06] I think either twice or three times you know she's a she's a really esteemed woman so if you want to get your name in early you can use the link that's right on the screen to do that um Sheila we we haven't uh you've you've been busy with the chat and the questions and we we haven't had much chance to hear from you but uh what are people dying to know about this situation oh well actually we have so many questions and I want to thank everyone for putting up so many questions for us to to answer tonight so um one of the questions uh let's see here um

[57:45] Dr. Staten um there's a question you know what do you do now and you know kind of post all of this you know terrible experience but what do you do now to protect yourself from embezzlement happening again audit trails understand what your audit trails do and and and that's your go-to on a daily basis you can't just do it when you're inquisitive because you have to know the routine of what happens through audit trails and your systems these these dental software systems are are built to show us everything that's happening all day long

[58:24] although it can be very overwhelming because it does register everything that happens so being able to distinguish between what's normal and what's abnormal or find the pattern early on of things that are abnormal that are happening so audit trail audit trail audit trail I can't see enough about audit trail Dave can you mark this on the time on the recording because what she just said was put so succinctly we need to put it into marketing honestly because um looking at the audit trails to find theft after the fact yeah we all do that that's what that's what I'm

[59:01] here for but what she just said about looking at the audit trail all the time so you know what they look like when it's normal I that phrase is insane that is absolutely what the crux of everything is I thank you Deborah for that I hadn't heard you say that before and it marked out somewhere that is key yeah all right thank you um and and one thing I'll mention as well you know and and I'm just gonna step back from what what Deborah and Scott just said because it's it's so good but I'm gonna I'm gonna make a broader comment um just like in dentistry prevention is

[59:45] far cheaper and less painful than the cure um you know if I were a patient and I went to Deborah as my dentist and said you know what I want to spend the least amount of money in my lifetime on my teeth what Deborah would say to me would be roughly you should become really good friends with your toothbrush and your dental floss and you should come in here every six months because doing those things will cost you a whole lot less in your lifetime than what what it will cost if you neglect those three basic things so um what what you're hearing

[1:00:16] from Deborah and Scott is prevention um something people don't necessarily know about prosperity and is we do a lot of proactive work as well I mean we're we we do investigations like happened here we also work with dentists to put the put the systems in place that will protect them and I I suspect that you know in that context anyway Deborah wishes that she met us five years earlier heck yeah all right all right um and and hiring you for prevention would have been much cheaper in the long run yeah sure would have um and Dr. Staten you're popular tonight

[1:00:57] we have another question for you um did any of the other employees in the office suspect anything that's a really great question um yeah so you know it still baffles me how Daniel had so much private time to talk to patients to get them captive in this um I was thinking about that when we talked about it earlier and I was I was you know I love doing dentistry and so for me it was always hard and difficult to charge patients as much as we do to do the things we do and and so she taught me early on to just leave the conversation and allow her to do her magic

[1:01:40] like and I did that and and my revenue went up so I just trusted from there so in hindsight that was really a bad mistake um that I see now so being involved is very important although other people in my dental practice because all of my past employees or some of them that still work here that worked here when she was here um it was just she had great control saying that that's the way Dr. Staten wants it done that's the way Dr. Staten wants it done and nobody ever questioned because she was the office manager saying that that's the way Dr.

[1:02:17] Staten wants it done although the thing is is Dr. Staten didn't know it was being done so knowing your systems knowing your people being in relationship being involved asking questions and audit trail audit trail audit trail all right thank you for that um let's see here one of these is a little more technical so how can you ensure that the cash and checks are reported on the daily cash collections reports scott um run your own reports in addition to the reports that you're given um as the practice owner um there are multitudes of ways that thieves

[1:03:06] use to curate a report for you at the end of the day that they want you to see um and by you running your own report after the fact in this question kind of came up in the chat also by running your own report after that the the that you received the one that you're given you can compare those two to make sure that seoman hasn't occurred um these numbers need to match and I often say and I kind of typed in a chat but I I deleted it because I figure I'd get to it is that the owner the dentist does not need to do every job in the office themselves but they

[1:03:49] need to know how to do every job in the office so that they can know if somebody's doing it wrong or if somebody's committing acts of theft or dishonesty um so you know you're not gonna make somebody angry if if uh sorry my cat I'm gonna make somebody angry if they think that you're you're you're double checking them because they don't have to know uh that you're double checking them or maybe you do want them to know um but you know that that trust but verify is always there you know you need to trust that the report that you were given from the front office is

[1:04:27] correct but you need to be able to verify that at any time to make sure that they're not um you know using a back dating scheme or or some other type of scheme uh you know when you run the report it should be the same as theirs that's that's really what the what the bottom line I think that covers a lot of the questions that came through in the chat um is is you know should there be two office managers no there doesn't need to be because what if they collude another boasting me from you um no one office manager but the doctor needs to know how to

[1:04:59] run their own reports to compare to the reports that they're given by their staff um you know it's a good night here when we quote both Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan in the same session oh oh wait there was a no and Scott said trust trust but verify so uh the yeah but never also if nobody caught it she quoted Patrick Swayze from dirty dancing earlier too so oh I don't know if anybody talked about it it was awesome nobody put baby in the corner I did that okay all right just just one thing I'll mention Sheila before you go on to the

[1:05:36] next question okay sure and and it was back to the earlier question about did other staff know something was going on um we we find two things in in a lot of cases we look at um another staff member knew something was amiss but they didn't necessarily have the wherewithal to put it together into deciding it was embezzlement but they knew something was wrong um one thing I really really encourage people to do is to put in place a whistleblower policy so this is a this is a formal policy it's normally part of your employee handbook and it's where you explain what will happen if

[1:06:13] somebody comes forward because I think what happens in a lot of practices is you have somebody who again knows something is is a little stinky but uh doesn't realize it's embezzlement and doesn't want to go to the doctor with kind of a half-baked explanation or theory about what's going on so the the whistleblower policy is just a way of giving that person some reassurance that you know if they come forward you'll protect their identity you'll investigate it properly and you'll you'll do what has to be done um Sheila maybe we can we can put that whistleblower policy we'll we'll send

[1:06:50] people out it it might be tomorrow or next week but we'll send out a link to our template for your policy and it's a really good thing to have great thank you for that so that'll be a great thing for the registrants to receive so I'll take care of that um all right I have a quick question again it's about the team members for you Dr. Staten um were they relieved when um she left your practice or was it you know gone in a whisper what how did that go down no um to this date um okay so I had a person working with me my hygienist and I met on my first day as a paid dentist it was

[1:07:38] we're still working together we're 11 years in now together and um she's actually the one who who broke the news of Danielle doing this when I was on vacation um and she's still with me today and there was so much relief it was she had suspected a couple of times things to me and I just told her kept hold on Rene I'm really trying to make sure this is what's happening so that we have proper evidence because if that's what's happening she's going to pay the price and Rene stuck with me it was confident in exposing all of that to me and then so was there

[1:08:17] relief yes actually I have a my friend office girl now that um she's my revenue cycle managers what I call her she dissolved my billing she was a receptionist at the time when Danielle was here working with us she left the practice for other reasons she moved out of state and when she came back to Las Vegas she reapplied and and works for me now um and in hindsight you know we always have those hindsight moments of the way things were before when Danielle was here versus the way things are now so my team is so relieved we we giggle about it from time to time um

[1:08:56] and we make fun of it although my team also admires how um how open my culture is and how much we talk and how much how open and honest we are together and they know that there's there's nothing that that is secret around my practice it's all an open book and they appreciate that about the culture and and they know that I am only trying to do what's ethical and right by by the patience by them by my team and by myself I just life's too short to not live it the right way I think yes well that's a great response and David this one might be for you

[1:09:42] there's a question on artificial intelligence and you know what how do you see this sort of impacting embezzlement fraud um kind of gaps and vulnerabilities going forward well a great question and that's a that's a hot topic right now in dentistry and and I guess I'll say a couple of things first of all I wish there was more natural intelligence in the world and that we didn't necessarily need to resort to the artificial stuff but that's just a slightly cynical observation um as as far as AI goes I can tell

[1:10:18] you that some of the DSOs are very actively looking at replacing some front desk functions with AI and I was at a DSO conference a little while ago and and the head of one decent sized DSO said you know what most of what a front desk does can be programmed as a kind of if then else sort of thing so you know in terms of things like booking appointments and um you know looking for payments from people and things like that you know the the ability is there to automate all those things um what what ultimate um impact it's going to have on

[1:11:00] on embezzlement is hard to say at this point I mean I I think there will always be a human side to dental care and there will always be humans involved and you know when when practice management software first came out I think a lot of people thought well this will be the end of embezzlement in dentistry and in fact it was only the beginning um there's been a way more money stolen since practices computerized than when they were using the old the old manual pegboard system and um every technological innovation opens up pathways for embezzlement you know

[1:11:39] every time there's a new feature um you know it it creates more potential for embezzlement so that's a long way of saying I don't know but I think stealing is still going to happen yeah no it's excellent it's a very big topic you're right we're here about it all the time um so I I think we can do two questions at once and I think we're almost out of time so I really want to thank all the people who've given us so many questions tonight it just shows you how engaged people are in your story Dr. Staten um so was there more than one methodology

[1:12:22] employed by Daniel Powers and what controls do we need to put in place to make sure that thieves don't embezzle money in your practice um audit trail audit trail audit trail um and and it's good that that you said that because audit trail is important um but we really you know controls to prevent is sort of asking yourself to be to to to go to sleep at the wheel because you've prevented embezzlement um we really talk about detection of anomaly um over the word prevention um and I know everybody wants to prevent embezzlement but it is really more

[1:13:07] about having controls to detect um and so that's sort of the verb is that we use and the other question was how many methodologies did she have um Christine I see you uh that question came from Christine Geary who just got promoted to supervising examiner which is was incredibly well deserved um and there's you know there's super categories of theft and and then there's all sorts of subcategories um this one really did use one super category with a bunch of variations on it um and uh we can go over those if you want Christine I'll I'll screen share with you um but

[1:13:49] yeah I mean it really was basically one mode there were a lot of different iterations um within that that primary mode if that helps answer the question thank you I I'm going to hand it back to David and once again thank you everyone for so many questions and great engagement tonight absolutely I'd like to echo Sheila's thank you to the audience you guys are always great and we we love having you with us um a couple of thank yous tonight first of all I'd like to I'd like to thank my co-host Sheila O'Driscoll

[1:14:29] for for stepping on camera tonight in a break with tradition Sheila you did great and uh we we probably love to have you back to do this again um Scott Clifford the bloodhound he he is um you know his his his contribution to um prospered and into the dental profession is just immense and uh he is he is really an anchor here um and uh we are we are so privileged to have him um the other thing you may not know is Scott's wife uh Rose Clifford is is a also an investigator with us and and has been for a long time so the Clifford family I think of as the

[1:15:11] the first family of dental embezzlement investigation and their their daughter Mickey is uh is is probably going to be joining us sooner or later as well and uh you know they're they're just a a terrific group of people and my final thank you and it's a it's a huge one is for for Deborah Staten for coming on and burying her soul and and and telling everybody what happened to her and uh you know she has really turned this into a teaching moment not just for herself but but for the whole profession and and I just can't thank you enough Deborah for

[1:15:43] for doing that I mean um David if if if I can help anyone that's that's the big thing about this is is there is so much prevention that could happen and it didn't have to be this way and if people knew how to protect themselves or what to do different I believe it would save a lot of people so I am a huge advocate for this and and going forward if anybody wants to talk to me about something I'd be happy to that's wonderful and with with our guests we normally ask them if there's a particular charity that they support and and Deborah

[1:16:16] mentioned uh Casa Nevada and uh we've we've made a donation to them on on her behalf so thank you very much for doing that and at that point I'd like to um wish you all a good night um you'll you'll get to hear the guy that internally we call him Mr. Big Voice in a second and thank you all very much and we really look forward to seeing you on on June the 22nd good night everybody

[1:16:46] thanks for listening to the dental practice owner's podcast brought to you by Prosperident you can contact Prosperident through its website www.prosperident.com or by calling 888-398-2327 if you have questions about this podcast if you would like to discuss your practice or there is a topic you would like to see in a future podcast we would love to hear from you amber wendy and david we'll be back soon with another episode