Healers versus Stealers: How to Outsmart the Thief in Your Dental Practice
Did you know that Prosperident CEO David Harris, with a lot of help from our team :-), wrote the definitive in-depth book on embezzlement and how practice owners can protect themselves?
Embezzlement in dental practices is a billion-dollar problem in the US every year.
HEALERS VERSUS STEALERS
How to Outsmart the Thief in Your Dental Practice
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ............................................................................ v
Chapter 1 The Most Embezzled Profession .............................. 1
Chapter 2 Why? ........................................................................... 4
Chapter 3 How Big Is the Problem? ......................................... 14
Chapter 4 Emotional Makeup of Embezzlers .......................... 27
Chapter 5 “I Live in A Small Town” and Other
Myths of Immunity .................................................. 52
Chapter 6 How Secure is My Practice Management
Software? ................................................................. 68
Chapter 7 My Spouse is My Office Manager ........................... 81
Chapter 8 Dentists Can Embezzle, Too .................................... 84
Chapter 9 Multi-location Practices and DSOs ......................... 89
Chapter 10 Protect Yourself as an Associate ............................ 97
Chapter 11 What Does Not Stop Embezzlement, and Why .... 111
Chapter 12 A Crime of Navigation ............................................ 116
Chapter 13 Can Financial Ratios Detect Embezzlement? ........ 119
Chapter 14 Why Did My Accountant Not Find the
Embezzlement? ...................................................... 123
Chapter 15 Theft in Orthodontic Practices ............................. 134
Chapter 16 Handling of Funds and Balancing by Staff ............. 136
Chapter 17 Financial Oversight of Your Practice ..................... 152
Chapter 18 Unauthorized Adjustments and Robin
Hood Fraud ............................................................ 172
Chapter 19 Handling Bad Debts ................................................ 175
Chapter 20 Some Other Protective Steps ............................... 179
Chapter 21 Improvise, Adapt and Overcome: Inside
the Mind of the Embezzler ................................... 198
Chapter 22 Please, Please Do Not Hire an Embezzler .............. 203
Chapter 23 Compensation Fraud ............................................. 231
Chapter 24 How to Fire a Staff Member Properly .................. 238
Chapter 25 Delegation vs. Abdication ..................................... 252
Chapter 26 The Question of “Trust” ........................................ 258
Chapter 27 What You Must Do If You Suspect
Embezzlement ........................................................ 261
Chapter 28 Your Course of Action if Embezzlement
Has Already Been Confirmed ................................ 272
Chapter 29 Crime and Punishment .......................................... 295
Chapter 30 Trust, Then Verify: Systems That Win .................... 311
Chapter 31 How Does Prosperident Do Its Work? .................. 325
Chapter 32 You’ve Got This! ..................................................... 329
Annex A — Checklist for Terminating an Employee .................... 333
Annex B — Panic Checklist for When Embezzlement is Suspected
or Confirmed ............................................................. 341
Chapter 1
The Most Embezzled Profession
Dentistry is the most embezzled profession in North
America. While embezzlement exists in every industry and
profession and has existed ever since humans developed
concepts of wealth and money, it seems to have a particular
affinity for dentistry.
What is embezzlement? Embezzlement happens when
someone who has been placed in a position of trust uses that
trust to steal. In the dental context, embezzlement is most
frequently committed by an employee, but the perpetrator
might also be a business partner, associate dentist, consultant,
accountant, or bookkeeper.
I’ll discuss the reasons later but for now let me give you
some stark numbers; the American Dental Association Council
on Dental Practice published results of a 2019 survey of almost
20,000 of its members. We’ll refer to this survey in this book
as the “2019 CDP Survey.” The 2019 CDP Survey found that
2 Why?
When the notorious 20th-century bank robber Willie
Sutton was asked once why he robbed banks, Sutton thought
the answer to this question was an obvious one. His simple
explanation was, “Because that is where the money is.”3
It is tempting to explain embezzlement in the same way;
thieves embezzle “because they can.” While most practices
do present juicy targets for would-be embezzlers, not every
staff member faced with such an opportunity chooses to steal,
and we need a better framework for distinguishing those who
would steal in a given situation from those who would not.
Probably the most oft-cited explanatory framework for
embezzlement is the “Fraud Triangle” developed in the 1970s by
criminologist Donald Cressey. Cressey’s Fraud Triangle suggests
Available on 