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The Embezzlement Detective Dentists Call | David Harris · Tiff Talks

• Tiffany: you are a forensic accountant. Tell me more about that. David Harris: Well, I'm actually a dental specific forensic accountant. So my company called Prosperident and I spend all day looking for those rotten people who steal from dentists. and Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and we put in a typical year probably a hundred or so of them in jail. Tiffany: wow. How did you get into that? David Harris: Well, I'd I'd like to tell you that I had some kind of master plan and th that's not the truth at all. I was, shall we say a reject from the education system. Tiffany: Ha ha. David Harris: and ended up with an early and unplanned exit from high school and joined the army because it sounded better than prison, which was my other choice that day. And the army saw something in me that probably I didn't see in myself and and invested in me and and promoted me and eventually sent me to college and got me got me working on investigations. And when I left the army I had a brief stint at a bank that I wouldn't say went really well. And then in 1989, so we're going back a couple of years. in 1989 I was home, I'd quit my job at the bank. I moved home, I was I'd been there about two weeks and was getting pretty bored when the phone rang and it was a guy I had been in high school with in my in my abbreviated trip there. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: was now a dentist and he was worried that his office manager was stealing from him and he said, I have no one else to call about this. So he Tiffany: Interesting. David Harris: plucked at my heartstrings a little bit, plus I was bored silly, so I said, Okay, let's let's get to the bottom of it and I went to his practice that night and we were able to solve the crime. And that was really my first contact with embezzlement in dental practices and thirty seven years later I am still there. Tiffany: What what do you find is the commonality in these cases? Is there something that is consistent throughout the dentists that get embezzled from, or would you think that would you say it's more having to do with the person who is stealing? David Harris: well let's start by saying that seventy percent of your audience, seven zero percent, will be stolen from sooner or later. Tiffany: Wow. David Harris: So to you know, to try to impute something about that large a population is is probably challenging. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: I think a lot of it's situational. First of all, most dentists I know didn't choose dentistry because they had this really strong desire to own a business. And secondly, it's a pretty complex business that's kind of run by a part time absentee owner who has this other job called clinician. Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: so I think that makes it a recipe for disaster. And I'll I'll add one more thing. They the whole the fact that a lot of dentistry is paid for by third parties like insurance companies creates other opportunities that wouldn't be there, you know, if if if if you ran a shoe repair business or something. Tiffany: the last time we talked, my favorite thing that you said. was how dentistry got it wrong. So so tell me more about that. David Harris: That's a broad statement. I think what I Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: said was a little bit narrower. I I heard from the time I was a teenager and starting to learn about money, and I'm sure a lot of other people did as well, that, you know, gee, David, as soon as you have enough money to be able to swing it, you should buy a house. You should buy real estate. And that's exactly what I did, and it was pretty good advice. I think Dentistry presents the equivalent of people buying real estate as as soon as you can swing it, as soon as you're confident clinically, you should buy a dental practice. It's kind of put out there as the the apex, you know, the the the goal to which young dentists should aspire. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And let's acknowledge that there's a big, big difference between owning a piece of real estate, which basically requires you to cut the grass every once in a while and replace the roof every 15 years, and owning a dental practice, which is a much more complex, challenging organism. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: My regret about the way this is presented in dentistry is is that there's no concept of introspection. I I think there are some dentists for whom owning a practice may not be exactly what they're wired for. And and these people could be fabulous clinicians, they could have a lot of other things to offer. But maybe owning the practice is just that that one reach too far in terms of w what they're good at and what they like doing. Tiffany: I totally agree. I think that for me, I thought that being a good dentist would mean that I would be a good business owner. And I had really no concept that those were two completely different things. David Harris: Yeah. And you know, with the benefit of hindsight, which as as we know is an exact science, you probably wish that somebody in dental school or, you know, maybe in your first couple of years after had said, Okay Tiffany, let's let's do some kind of assessment at at at what brings you joy in life and what causes you stress. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And if you had done that assessment, hopefully it Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: would say, well, you know, gee, being the people's boss, being responsible for making sure there's enough money in the bank to pay the payroll, you know, dealing with unhappy patients, dealing with the hygienist who quit on short notice, you know. Tiffany, that's not what floats your boat. Let's let let's rethink your career plan. Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: in a different way because there are lots of terrific careers you can have in dentistry that don't involve practice ownership. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. So in your experience when you found these people that that let's say you like they would agree that they shouldn't be practice owners, like what kind of questions do you think that they should have asked themselves before they bought a practice that would have kind of shown them like, hey, this isn't a great idea for you? David Harris: to me one issue that every practice owner has to face is conflict. And conflict can come in a lot of different forms. I mean it can be two of your staff who don't get along with each other. It could be the patient who's unhappy with the shade of their crown and is more or less screaming that at the top of their lungs. you know, there are a lot of potential forms of conflict. It could be the insurance company that decides it wants to do an audit of some of your patients. And I guess if if I were trying to assess, the first question would be, how does that stuff affect me? And associates have conflicts too. Absolutely they do. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: but In my mind, their conflicts are smaller and more manageable, and in the worst case, they have a practice owner to hide behind and and and who can take the brunt of some of that. So that would be one question. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: you know, I guess an another question is, are are you that introvert or extrovert? I think in introverted dentists are gonna struggle more to be practice owners, and I'm I'm saying that as an introvert. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and how how much do you enjoy hiring and training and relating to staff? Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: how organized are you as a person? You know, when when Tiffany: That's a big one. David Harris: you're when you're an associate, you know, the work kind of comes to you and you have to do it. Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: as a practice owner you still have to do that, but then there's this whole other whole other envelope around the around the work that you have to deal with. I mean I've got to do marketing, I've got to do OSHA compliance, I've got to deal with HIPAA, Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: I've got to figure out the Byzantine employment laws in my state and make sure that I'm compliant. You know, there's a whole whole basket of stuff in addition to the clinical output, which absolutely still has to happen because that's what pays the bills. Tiffany: I think that that was the most stressful part of ownership. It was this just background nagging that never went away that I was for like trying to keep all the balls in the air. But the thing was, what ball am I missing? Like I don't even know if like what the count of balls are, you know, like what am I missing that's gonna be the one thing that's gonna take me down? David Harris: Yeah. And you know, it's also multitasking. I mean, you're in your operatory, it's time to go check Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: on the hygiene patient and then the you know, in the eight second walk from your operatory to the hygiene op, you know, something else is gonna go through your brain as an owner that you have to deal with and then you get in the hygiene op and you have to kinda reset and say, Okay, I you know, I now have to take my business owner hat off and I have to put on my hat of diagnostician and and person who relates to the patient and Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: you know, understand what's going on in their mouth. Tiffany: Yeah, switching is so hard. I think hygiene checks. I don't know anyone who who says I love doing hygiene checks, you know? Like it it's so hard to to be in one in one mode and then have to switch on a dime, like and be cheerful and my gosh, how are your kids? And it's so hard. David Harris: people find it hard enough to switch between their own operatory, where there's a root canal going on and Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and and hygiene. But as I say, as a practice owner, you know, in that in that five Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: or eight seconds in between, your mind has to go somewhere else. So now there's kind of a third a a third competitor in the in the multitasking Olympics. Tiffany: Yep, totally. I think another thing is that I have learned through a whole lot of introspection is I'm really good at starting things. I am not good at the follow through. So so you know, in in your line of work, I I did a lot of sticking my head in the sand, which I think made me like a very easy target. For for someone to steal from me. David Harris: Yeah, again, it's a question of, as you say, you've got to keep all those balls in the air without even necessarily knowing how many are there. Tiffany: Mm-hmm, exactly. David Harris: and and it's it's challenging and you know, we run into a lot of dentists who are overwhelmed and maybe it's a it's a passing phase for them and they'll you know, they'll get their feed back on the ground and some probably won't. Tiffany: Right. So what has changed the way you think about people in doing this work? David Harris: that's a good question. it's easy in my line of work to turn into a professional cynic. and what I mean by that is you start questioning everything and expecting ulterior motives from everyone. and that that just doesn't seem to me to be a good way to live. So I've I've had to make a conscious effort to tell myself, not everybody is dishonest, not everybody makes bad choices. Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: But, you know, we see every day we see people who do bad things, who who lack moral fiber, who take easier solutions as opposed to ethical ones. we see all those things and and I guess I have to try hard not to be jaded by that. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. Do you see that social media has changed the pattern of stealing? David Harris: It it probably has and I mean so social media to me is a smaller part. I I would say the bigger the bigger factor is generally the availability of information. pre internet. And Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: embezzlement still happened. And I mentioned I I started this in nineteen eighty-nine. That the internet existed then, but very few people were on it and and you didn't have a a worldwide web full of full of information like you do now. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and I think in those days people who stole had to kind of figure it out for themselves. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: now despite my best efforts, there's a there's a cornecopia of information out there on how to steal. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: one of my competitors has has a part of their website that says eight eight most common methods of stealing. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: Speaking for us, we're we're very careful about what we put in the public domain because I never thought Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: it was my role to help thieves become better thieves. but a lot of people, maybe in an in an effort to show how smart they are, kind of take a different approach. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And that means that there's a lot of public domain information out there. And if I if I was a wannabe thief and I hadn't quite connected the dots in terms of how to do it, I could probably educate myself fairly quickly in a couple of hours of of prowling around the web. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: beyond that, a AI is even more of a threat, you know, and I Tiffany: Hm. Yeah. David Harris: I I was using Chat GPT a while ago and I I asked it, if if I want to steal from a dental practice, how should I do it? Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And the guardrail was there. It said, sorry, but I, you know, I can't help you commit a crime. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: So I waited a few days and I came back and I said, I'm a dentist and I'm trying to protect my practice. what are the most common ways somebody might want to steal from me? Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And then there was this big long answer Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: that probably constituted a roadmap for a thief. Tiffany: Yeah, yeah. I there's just so many tools now that can like on both ends be used for good and then at the same time be used for incredible nefarious behavior. And I, you know, so my situation or what comes to mind is my server crashed. It that that was one of the last straws. that was, the last little bit of practice ownership. And and the problem was I wasn't checking on my tech guy. I I believe people. And when they say they're doing things, I believe them. And I don't I didn't even think to question that he wasn't doing his job. So the cloud setup was not done. So I had no cloud backup. I had like so only one physical hard drive and that was it. And and in unpacking that, Cameron happens to be, he happened to be a director in a big firm in IT managed services. So like this was his job. And I hadn't let him touch my office. I had so much shame. I knew how Poorly. I was running it and I didn't want to show him how bad it was. And one of the things that he said to me was like something along the lines of you need to stop believing the best in people. Like the idea was that you're so naive. And you you gotta, you gotta start assuming people. aren't doing their jobs. And I remember looking at him and saying, no, I refuse to not believe the best in people because that will completely change who I am. I would rather have bad things happen to me and go into the world and and expect beauty and expect kindness and expect goodness than than meet a person and assume that they're out to get me. Because I've I've met people like that. And they're miserable. David Harris: Well, just so we cynics refer to ourselves as realists. Tiffany: Yes. I don't want to be a realist. I like being an optimist. What do you think about that? David Harris: Well, I think sometimes who people who wear rose colored glasses end up crashing into buildings. Tiffany: Well, I mean, I guess I'm I'm a good example of that. But what keeps what's consistent in throughout the years? Good, bad personalities, like what hasn't changed? I'm sure you've seen a lot of change since 1989. David Harris: Yeah, technology has made a lot of changes to how people steal. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: The reasons people steal and I'll say the behaviors that they exhibit when they're stealing, that stuff's been pretty constant. and I I suspect it won't be very different a hundred years from now either. so the the the how has changed, but the why not really. Thieves steal for one of two reasons typically. Sometimes it's financial need, it's desperation. Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: And this is the person, Tiffany, who's two months behind in the mortgage, you know, their back's against the wall, they're about to lose their house. And they steal to kind of protect the basics of of their life. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and then you have greedy thieves who feel like society doesn't appreciate their considerable talent. they think that they're they're they're very good at their job and they're ridiculously underpaid for it and they steal what they think the doctor should be giving them in the first place. there's an obvious distortion here and you probably know this. Virtually every staff member overestimates how much the doctor actually takes home. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: Which plays right into that line of thinking. i th if if you have a practice that brings in a million dollars a year, which these days is is probably considered an average sized solo practice, you know, a lot of your staff firmly believe that you take home a million dollars each year, even though, you know, they at at at some conceptual level they know there's overhead. In fact they're part of it. But they just assume that, you know, gee, patients paid a million dollars, you know, Tiffany Tiffany put a million dollars in her pocket. And of course we we know categorically that that's not true, but that's their perception. Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: And that makes it easier to rationalize. Every every thief knows stealing is wrong. I mean we all we all learned that when we were kids on the playground. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: what a thief has to be able to convince themselves is well, I know that in general it's wrong to steal. But it's okay in this situation because and then whatever comes out of their mouth after the because, that's the rationalization. because Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: the doctor's husband would only spend it anyway. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: Because I'm really underpaid here. because the doctor's dishonest and rips off patients and insurance companies and I'm just gonna you know, I'm just gonna help myself to their dishonest money. There are there are a lot of rationalizations, but thieves need to be able to tell themselves that, you know, the the this situation warrants an exception. Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. I I can see that. How how do you help dentists after? I I know that there's a lot of loss of trust in yourself and beating yourself up. What what do you say to those people who this has happened to? David Harris: I I think dentists have this culture of accountability. And what I mean by that is if it goes wrong no matter what it was in my practice, it's my fault. whether it's the the the crown that broke off or, you know, the patient who's complaining because the hygienist dug in a little bit hard, doing scaling and root planing or whatever. You know, as as as one dentist said to me, yeah, it's like crap rolls downhill and dentists will forever live in the valley. Tiffany: I don't know. David Harris: So that's that's kind of the culture and from a clinical perspective it makes total sense. I mean if if if if you're treating me as a healthcare provider, I I expect you to be fully accountable for what what you do, what your assistant does, what your hygienist does, you know, that that Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: that should be the standard. I think the problem that that the dental profession creates for itself though is it then tries to apply that standard in other places. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: what happens administratively in the practice. So a lot of the dentists who we deal with blame themselves. and it's easy to do that once you saw how somebody stole. For example, Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: let's say that you you own a practice and you trust me, your office manager, to take money to the bank. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And what starts happening is the amount of money that leaves the practice is different than the amount that arrives at the bank. Once you see that that has happened, you go like this and say, well, if only I had taken the money to the bank myself, instead Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: of delegating that to a staff member, that would not have happened. And the the problem with that analysis is it it it misses a fundamental point, which is that if I'm a thief and that opportunity is not available to me, I'll think of something else. thieves are are pushed by some pretty powerful demons. So if you're taking the money to the bank and I have no opportunity to just leave the practice and and start dividing it up between you and me, I'll do that division somehow before you leave the practice. And I'll find a way to prick fix your practice management software so that it's not obvious to you that that's what happened. so when dentists see how they were stolen from, they blame themselves and say, well, the way that happened is pretty simple, and I could have fixed it, so I'm a dummy. Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: And I I say a couple of things to them. First of all, I I don't care how lax you think you were in terms of oversight of your practice. That never makes it okay for somebody to steal. I mean, you you know, should be able to empty out your wallet and leave it on the table. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: in the break room and walk away and come back and have the same amount of money there. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: now, do do I advise you to make a pile of twenties on Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: the on the break room table and walk away? No, but you know, i somebody else still chose to transgress society's rules. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: So, you know, they get they get mad at themselves, they blame themselves, they think there was an easy cure and they just didn't spot it, which kind of makes them makes them feel a little bit on the stupid side. And I say to them, as I say, nothing nothing made this okay. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: you know, is it possible going forward to do things differently in overseeing your practice? Absolutely it is, and we do have a proactive product where we work with Dennis to put the controls in place, either after they've been stolen from or when they come to me and say, I I I know that the majority of my peers get stolen from and I'd rather not be in that group. Can you can you help me with systems? So we we we do help proactively and you know I I will tell people it's not your fault. You didn't cause this. Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: it's it's okay to be mad at them, but being mad at yourself is probably a little bit misplaced. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and you know, sometimes that that gives people a little bit of comfort when they've been stolen from. And Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: e every dentist who's stolen from, you know, especially in a in a small office, I mean if it's a if it's a D S O with five hundred offices, the the emotions can be a little bit different, but any dentist who's stolen from feels violated. Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: years ago I I I lectured somewhere, and two dentists came up to me after, and they were good friends with each other, and they'd both been stolen from. And one guy was describing the feeling to me, and he said, Yeah, it's like you went away for the weekend. And you came back and somebody had robbed your house and peed on your carpets. And the other guy said, No, that's not quite it. It's like you go away and all those things happen, but then the next night you're walking your dog through the neighborhood and hanging up on your neighbor's you know look through the window in your neighbor's house and hanging up on his wall is the painting that used to be in your house. in other words, you know, this is not like when you when you leave your car somewhere and some some unknown person smashes the window and and and walks out with your your laptop. this is a crime by somebody you know really well, you signed their paychecks, Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: you went to their daughter's wedding three months ago and you're just now getting the picture of how much you paid for it. Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. There there's that personal component that that I trusted this person into my welcomed them into my life and now they have betrayed me. David Harris: Yeah, and one of the interesting things, you know, when you contrast embezzlement with every other kind of crime, embezzlement is repeated victimization of the same person. Tiffany: Yeah, sure. David Harris: Right? There are very few crimes where the same person hits the same victim Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: more than once or certainly more than a hundred times. but that's what embezzlement is. So it it it it it hits Dennis personally. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And we're not we're not psychologists here and we we can't help them get their equilibrium back but we know that it's a challenge. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So tell me more about what services you provide and how people can find you and all of those things. David Harris: We we do a few things. first of all we have several speakers and we we love to do speaking presentations and and collectively we do about fifty or sixty a year. we also investigate embezzlement, so somebody will call us and say, I think that I might have a problem. Can you take a stealthy, in other words, invisible look at my practice? And and that's how we do it. We have our proactive work that I was talking about a minute ago where we Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: help people put systems in place that will protect them. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: We have a an initial screening product called First Look, which is quick and fairly inexpensive. And it's for somebody who says, look, I'm not sure if I have a problem or not, can you please just get your head into my books a little bit and see if you think I need a full audit? Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And then the final thing we do is called litigation support, and that's where we help dentists who are engaged in financial disputes. So maybe you bought a practice and after you bought it, you realize that the seller had lied to you a little bit about how many new patients a month and what percentage of their practice was insurance and what percent was fee for service and things like that. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: So people like that go to an attorney, the attorney hires us to look at what the facts were and whether whether you were in fact lied to. So that's our that's our bundle. Tiffany: Gotcha. So let's say I am a dentist and I suspect some sort of embezzlement. What are the the things that I should do and that I should not do in that situation? David Harris: the big don't is don't let the person who's under suspicion know that you have concerns. Tiffany: Tell me more. Why? David Harris: well, if I am your office manager and let's say I'm stealing from you and I think that I'm about to get caught, which means that I go to prison, you know, my picture's in the paper, my spouse divorces me, you know, there there can be a lot of consequences to me. Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. David Harris: the list of things that I will refuse to do to try to prevent all this from happening is pretty short. And I'm gonna give you the worst the the the worst imaginable depiction of this. going back about ten years, there was a dentist in Maryland who had an office manager who was stealing from him. And she got spooked, she thought he was about to catch her. So she came back to the practice one night with when when she knew her doctor would be staying light and doing his charts and she brought her cousin with her for some muscle and the two of them beat the dentist to death. Tiffany: Damn. David Harris: Yeah. And the the worst part of this story, if if what I just said wasn't already bad enough, the worst part of the story is that the amount she had stolen to that point was $17,000. Tiffany: man. David Harris: And for that fairly modest amount of money, she and her cousin got twenty years in prison each, and of course the the the dentist family got them home in a box. Tiffany: Mm. David Harris: we were not involved in that case. I know of three other cases where thankfully we were also not involved Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: where similarly dentists were murdered by embezzlers. Tiffany: Jesus. David Harris: So, if you suspect embezzlement, keeping what happens next secret is is really key and also challenging. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: you know, most most dentists didn't have you know, an alternate career in acting and they chose dentistry instead. Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: so you know, you have to put on a smile and and and go to work and act like nothing's happening when you might be fairly convinced that it is. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And and a lot of the dentists who hire us say they feel this more or less instance sense of relief. I mean, we haven't done anything yet, we haven't found anything yet, but just to take this burden off their back and put it on ours, Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: makes them feel better. So the the big thing is not to arouse their suspicion. And there are a lot of things that could happen. you go to the you go to the office manager and you ask for some reports from your practice management software you've never asked for before. And then you go into your private office and shut the door and spend the next hour on the phone with your accountant. to somebody who's looking at you every day as in, does does Tiffany know is she about to catch me? That's probably going to do it. Even Poking around in in practice management software can be dangerous. We've had people who tried to do their own DIY investigation. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And the thing they didn't realize is that the stuff they were doing was captured in what's called the audit trail from the practice management software, which Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: the thief is watching. So they get they the the thief comes in on Monday morning and sees that somebody was in on Sunday for four hours and there are a whole bunch of reports that were printed and things in the software. They know. Tiffany: Mm. Mm-hmm. David Harris: When we do investigations, most of the time we'll clone the practice management software used in the office. So we we create Tiffany: Got it. David Harris: a duplicate of the software in our lab. We don't even Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: touch the live software once. We just we just copy the data files over and then and then build a clone. And Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: our whole investigation happens in that clone which lives in our system. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: So, you know, we can we can create all the audit trail entries we want and nobody will ever know. Tiffany: Interesting. So what does that look like? So let's say someone calls you, you get their their you clone their software. Just are you sitting there and you're going through it? Do you have a team of people? how I'm just I'm interested in in how it all works. David Harris: We have eighteen investigators. they all come from dentistry, so we have several who are dentists, we have a couple of recovering dental hygienists, we have people who were office managers or software trainers, we we hire a bit from the outsourced insurance industry. because those people come with some of the skills we need. So so everybody's worked in dentistry for typically ten or more years and then they train for about a year and a half with us to become kind of fully proficient as an investigator. and then they work through a series of protocols. you know, our investigations are are kind of highly structured. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and that does not stop people from chasing some loose end they see, but there's a there's a process we go through that's that's fairly well proven and you know we've refined over decades Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: to see if there's money missing. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And you know the process usually takes around ten weeks in total. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. Wow. David Harris: but If stealing's happening, we normally start to see it around the midpoint. So around week four or five of an investigation, we make that we we call it the you're not crazy call to the dentist, where we say, Yes, you know, what you thought you were seeing is what you were seeing, and you know, we found forty-two thousand dollars missing so far, but that number's probably gonna be higher. You know, you get one of those calls. And then Tiffany: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. David Harris: if this person is still working for you, which is often the case, you know, well. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: We'll walk through with you how to do a an orderly termination. a lot of times if the dentist is nervous about doing this themselves, we'll put one of our team on site. So, you know, if if you live in California, we'll get one of our team from California to go sit with sit with you while you while you do the firing. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and and people find that easier. It's a service we never plan to offer, but the The demand was there so we've we've been doing a a fair bit of that. Tiffany: At what point does the thief get arrested? David Harris: That normally happens later. people have this vision of the police coming into their practice with handcuffs and cuffing Tiffany: Yeah, yeah. David Harris: somebody and taking them out. And that that does happen sometimes. Usually if that happens, the thief has priors. They have they've been convicted before. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and I'll I'll I'll mention slightly tangentially that one of the things that most practice owners do a miserable job of is pre-employment screening. Tiffany: That's me. David Harris: Yeah, two feet in a heartbeat, yes, you can start Monday. so people with with a past history of stealing find it pretty easy to get hired. And sometimes with those with those people they they can actually be led out of the practice in handcuffs. But most of the time somebody's fired and it might be months before they get arrested. And it might be years before they get convicted of the crime. Tiffany: Got it. David Harris: The justice system is, a fairly big government bureaucracy and it moves at its own speed, which would make turtles look like racehorses. Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. So what what are the last like this is what you through your experience, the one the few things that you should look for, or you know, these are the the big do's as as practice owners. David Harris: Yeah. a couple of things. First of all, you need to be attuned to staff behavior. You know, I Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: I find it interesting what happens at lunchtime in most dental practices. You know, and if the whole practice closes at lunch, this the team all goes into the break room and has lunch and the doctor goes into their private office and, you know, checks their investments on online or whatever they do. Tiffany: Ha ha David Harris: And, there's this this kind of scattering at lunch and then and then they get back together. one thing I encourage is I encourage practice owners and maybe w at least once a week to have lunch with their staff. You know, the break room is kind of a place where the hierarchy gets left at the door Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and, you know, people just interact as people. And that's when you, you know, find out about your staff member who's trying to buy a new house, but two banks turn them down for a mortgage and Not everybody in that situation is going to steal, Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: but it's a it's a pressure that might cause somebody to act. so staff behavior is kind of important. Some of the telltales, a lot of thieves like to be alone when they steal. So they arrive early or they stay late or they make maybe un undisclosed visits to the practice on the weekend to catch up on things, but Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: in fact they're stealing. thieves are very territorial, so they're they're possessive about their duties. They really don't want to cross train anybody else to do any part of their job. They want to keep their stuff to them and their knowledge to themselves. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: A lot of thieves will refuse to take a vacation because when they're gone from the practice, they can't control what happens there anymore and the chance of discovery goes up. Tiffany: Interesting. David Harris: So there are more behaviors, but those are some of them. On the financial side of your practice, a couple of things. The first thing is this. Every practice owner needs to do a comparison each month between what their software said they collected and what went in the bank. If I'm a thief and I and and you're my practice owner and I sense that you're not watching that, you have made it so easy for me. Money comes in, I record it properly in practice management software, which is something as a thief I'd like to do, Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: and then I just don't deposit all the money. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: So you need to do that comparison. The best way to do it is after the end of the month, print a month-end summary from your practice management software and compare it to what went in your bank. If you don't do that, I I will be fairly blunt about this. The dumbest, laziest thief you would ever hire can steal your money. Okay, they don't need to be smart, they don't need to understand your software very well if they can record payments and then divert some of them. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: the other thing that we tell well we tell practice owners to do a few other things. One thing that your audience has probably never heard before today is something called articulation. And I I I say that very aware that as soon as I say articulation to a dentist, you know, they're they're they're they're picturing jaw function. Tiffany: Right. David Harris: what articulation means in my world is this. If your practice was open 20 days last month. And at the end of each day you get an end-of-day report. You look at it. I always tell Dennis, anytime you look at a report, put your initials on it so that that's the that's the one that you saw, because otherwise your reports all look alike. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: So at the end of each day, you you put your initials on each report, you you stick them in a drawer. At the end of the month, you pull out those 20 reports. And now you print a month-end summary, which is a big day in, but for the whole for the whole month. And what you do is you add up three numbers on the 20 individual reports, which are fees, adjustments, and payments. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: You compare them to the month-end summary. Those things should agree exactly. What this does, Tiffany, is it prevents people from coming in on a Saturday and putting some stuff through your software you don't they don't want you to see. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: In other words, if those two articulate, it means that everything that has happened in the software this month is on one of those 20 reports that you looked at. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: If they don't articulate, then there was there's something else you haven't seen yet, which makes me really want to see it. Tiffany: Right. Right. How long does that take for someone who's like, my gosh, that's too much, that's way too much, another thing on my list. David Harris: Well, we have we have a spreadsheet that does it. And I'll I'll mention to your audience that if anybody wants a spreadsheet, and they're they're customized by software. So if you use if if you use OpenDental, the the articulation worksheet looks a little bit different than if you're an Orthodonist and you're using Ortho 2. so if you want a a spreadsheet customized to your software, just Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: email me and tell me which software you're using and I'll be happy to send you one. Tiffany: Awesome. David Harris: what what I tell people to do is at the end of each day, open up your spreadsheet and enter those three numbers from today. So fees, adjustments, payments. Less than a minute. At the end of the month, the spreadsheet adds it all up. All you need to do is print the month end and compare. That's a five-minute job. So I don't Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: see this being your biggest time suck as a practice owner. But it's a really important safeguard. Tiffany: Yeah, it sounds like it. And those are the things that I ask specifically about the time because those are the things that they seem really overwhelming when you are not in the practice of doing it. But really everyone should be doing this five minutes to save your practice. David Harris: Yeah. comparing collections against deposits, which I think is a is a month end activity, not something you try to do every day. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And and and doing articulation are are two of the best things you can do to protect yourself. Tiffany: Awesome. What did I miss? What are the things that I missed? Any anything at all? David Harris: we talked about hiring and Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: maybe that's that that's a conversation that that we might do in more depth later. but one thing I'll say now just to get your audience thinking is that roughly seventy million Americans, which is about one in four adults, has a criminal record. Tiffany: Whoa. David Harris: So if you and and many practices don't do criminal record checks and one in four times it's gonna matter. Now, to be clear, not every criminal record would stop me from hiring somebody. But, you know, if if somebody was convicted of check fraud or, you know, child molestation or something like that, I sure as heck want to know that and and those people won't get jobs. somebody who has a criminal record because they got busted for marijuana possession twenty years ago, I'd probably Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: look past that pretty quickly. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: It amazes me that the norm in dentistry is not to drug test applicants. The the DEA gives Dennis the keys to the pharmacy. Tiffany: Mm-hmm. David Harris: And yet, you know, we're not all that interested in whether that assistant passing me sharp instruments today is high or not. Tiffany: Yeah. David Harris: So yeah, I'd love to love to dig into that in another session sometime. Tiffany: This is fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. So where people where can people find you? David Harris: if you have questions or you want to talk about your practice or something like that, the best thing to do is go to our website, which is www.prosperident dot com. And there's a contact us form there you can fill in and somebody will get back to you usually within twenty four hours for a confidential discussion. If you want to reach us by phone you can call our toll-free number which is 888-398-2327. So 888-398-2327. And same thing, we'll we'll either jump on the call or we'll get back to you quickly. Tiffany: Awesome. We'll put all of that wherever it needs to go so people can contact you. Thank you so much, David. I I I really enjoy talking to you. I think it's so fascinating to see kind of the different sides of how people support dentists and and all of those things. So thanks for being here. David Harris: It was a pleasure and I really admire what you're doing for the profession and wish you every success at it. Tiffany: Thank you so much.