Every Wednesday, a member of the Prosperident investigative team records a short video — typically two to three minutes — addressing a single, specific vulnerability we see in dental practices. Tips of the Week are designed to be watched between patients, shared at a morning huddle, or forwarded to a bookkeeper or office manager. Topics rotate through four areas: practice management software anomalies, banking and merchant-account controls, hiring and reference-checking, and behavioral red flags exhibited by embezzlers. Below is our most recent tip, followed by an archive of past episodes.
Bundling Payments (Alyssa Kimmins) — Why combining multiple patient payments into a single transaction creates concealment opportunities and how to spot it in your software reports.
Software Permission Settings (Wendy Askins) — Which access levels in Dentrix, Eaglesoft, and Open Dental represent the highest embezzlement risk, and how to audit who has them.
Voided and Deleted Transactions (David Harris) — What a healthy void rate looks like and the warning signs that deletions are being used to conceal collections.
Adjustment Entries to Watch (Cathy Jugovic) — Not all adjustments are equal. How to distinguish legitimate write-offs from entries designed to make money disappear.
Production vs. Collection Discrepancies (Amber Weber-Gonzales) — When your production and collection numbers diverge, here is what to look at first.
Day-End Balancing (David Harris) — What to watch for when the person closing out the day is also the person handling deposits — and why separation of duties matters even in small practices.
Merchant Account Access (Wendy Askins) — Why merchant-account credentials are a sleeper risk and what controls should be in place around refund authority.
Credit Card Refunds as an Embezzlement Method (Alyssa Kimmins) — How refunds to personal cards are processed and why they rarely appear in standard end-of-day reports.
Gift Cards and Patient Refund Schemes (Cathy Jugovic) — A growing method: converting patient credit balances to gift cards or cash refunds that never reach the patient.
What to Actually Ask References (David Harris) — The questions most employers skip and why the answers to those questions are the most predictive of future embezzlement risk.
Background Check Limitations (Amber Weber-Gonzales) — Why a clean background check is not the same as a clean history, and what additional steps matter most before hiring financial staff.
Overtime and Schedule Manipulation (Wendy Askins) — How inflated hours and unauthorized schedule changes drain practices, and the reporting patterns that reveal them.
The Protective Employee (David Harris) — Why the team member who insists on handling everything themselves — and resists cross-training — is statistically your highest risk.
Lifestyle Changes to Notice (Cathy Jugovic) — What sudden changes in spending, vacation habits, or financial stress can signal, and how to think about them without jumping to conclusions.
What to Do If You Suspect Embezzlement (David Harris) — The steps to take — and the mistakes to avoid — when you first suspect that money is missing from your practice.
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