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The “E” Word: What to Do When You Suspect Embezzlement · The Millionaire Dentist™

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  Hello, everyone, Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist Podcast, brought to you by
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  Four Quadrants Advisory. On this podcast, we break down the world of dentistry,
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  finances and business practices to help you become the millionaire dentist you deserve to
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  be. Please be advised we do speak with an honest tongue and may not
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  be safe for work. Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hires back at
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  the Millionaire Dennist Podcast in studio with co host Jared Dan. Thank you looking
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  good man Pocket Square. Yeah, got clients in from the East Coast today.
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  Right, you're looking pretty good too. You got a nice little orange
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  tie on. We're both wearing a gray suit. I'm like a cream cycle
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  and a face for radio. So thank god we're doing a podcast with no
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  video. Cream cycle. Hey, in this in this environment of inflation and
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  joblessness and just you know, despair, what's a good way for a practice
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  owners staff to maybe you know, have more money at home? Um,
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  you know, if the if the dentist isn't looking at the books all that
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  often, I'm pretty sure you can probably skim right off the top there,
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  right, Just steal it, that's right, Just steal that money. That's
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  right that you you uh, you walked right into it. Yes, we're
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  not promoting for no dental staffs to steal or skim, but we're certainly going
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  to jump into that topic today. That the E word cazement or it's a
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  it's a type of fraud as well. Yeah, so let me ask you,
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  Casey. You know you're out there shaking babies and holding hands and all
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  that kind of stuff. We had years and years and years ago, had
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  talked about embezzlement and fraud and stuff like that before. Is this still a
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  prevalent issue today? I would say more so given the current climate of the
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  economy, some people, you know, when some people get more desperate or
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  have fewer options, um, you know, do the right thing or feed
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  your family, right. I mean that's one of those questions you can get
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  into ethics, integrity, morality, all those things like what what do you
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  do? But yeah, I think in today's current climate, absolutely it's something
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  that people should keep their eye on. And here's the other thing. Staff
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  Right now, Staff's hard to come by. So let's say somebody's just a
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  complete idiot and gets caught in their mind, they might say, well,
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  I can I can just go get another job because it's so in demand.
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  So yeah, I'd say the climate today's climate is ripe for fraud and buzzelement.
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  I mean really, there's there's no industry that's safe from this. You
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  know, back in back when I was in high school, and even if
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  you're a thief, your thief partner might steal for Yeah, there's no Yeah,
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  back in high school, I worked at I worked at a video store
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  and all of our candy and ice cream was not kept on the books.
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  It was just a wad of cash we kept in a video because that tape
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  and for our younger listeners of video store was a place you would go to
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  buy or rent a VHS tape or CD DVD to watch said movie. Did
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  you know back then, back in the eighties nineties, one VHS tape for
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  a rental store costs over one hundred dollars. No, that's why they charge
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  so much, relate FeAs and stuff. One copy was over one hundred dollars.
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  Wow, that's what they charge the video store. Looking back, that's
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  crazy. Yeah, we can go down that rabbit hole for forty seconds.
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  What about the things today? Do you think we're overpaying for? Because the
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  systems. It's it's it's weird, man. The only thing that's gotten better
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  and the prices have gone down, it seems to be TVs. Quality gets
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  better and they're cheaper now, isn't it weird? If you could have a
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  mechanism to hypnotize the populist that you might find a way to get it in
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  everybody's home for a cheap price. Up, I'm getting, I'm getting in.
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  I'm getting too much in the weeds. That's that's it. Let's pivot
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  back to just the simple fraud and embezzlement, not not a so casey.
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  Let me ask you if if you're the owner, you're the practice owner,
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  and you suspect that something is happening, what are what are some things that
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  we should look at doing to get that ball rolling? You should freak out,
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  break stuff, Ye, put the person you think might be doing it
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  in a headlock and alert everybody. No, that's all the things you should
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  bad. No, you shouldn't do that. But let's let's pick that apart.
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  Number one, you ask, is it still prevalent today? Yeah?
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  I mean i'd say what fifty sixty percent? Some older statistics said, potentially
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  a dentist could be defrauded in their career, right, it could be one
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  in two. Wow, Right, I've been affected in some way? Yeah.
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  Yeah. And the average loss of like one hundred and fifty thousand bucks,
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  that's just the average loss. Yeah, So a lot of these people
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  aren't just getting the ice cream money that you talked about at the video store,
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  right, skimming five bucks? Typically greed only grows, and so you're
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  talking fifty sixty percent of people could be affected by it over their career to
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  the tune of six figures one hundred and fifty thousand bucks. That's something right
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  there, No kidding. So in a general kind of way, how do
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  you feel that a practice owner, really, anybody who owns a business would
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  feel if they if they think this is happening, Well, that's a good
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  question, right, they suspect something's not right. Um, the more information
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  you gain, I think the life cycle of emotion, right, you're probably
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  pissed off. Right, there's probably some guilt involved, like gosh, I
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  should I should have been more aware of this anger and guilt. Then you've
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  got the feeling of of betrayal and distrust because you don't know who that works
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  for. You could be doing that it's the taste of betrayal. Yeah,
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  the taste of betrayal from which harder than even bud light from what did your
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  a game? Brother? Right? That will let the audience interprets out however
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  they want. Right, that's right, well, and even fear right.
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  I think all all those can be common. But there's a strong urge probably
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  to solve the problem immediately, right, right, And that's actually that you
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  want to do the opposite of that instinct that George Costanza do the opposite of
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  what you want to do. Yeah, you're gonna have missteps if for if
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  you're playing off the emotions that you feel, you're probably going to overcompensate and
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  misstep what actually needs to be done in the unfortunate situation where you either think
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  you are or know you are being embezzled from right, it's probably not a
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  bad idea too to get some professional advice in one of these situations as well.
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  You know, you're not a private investigator or a police officer, so
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  having someone who has knowledge of this could be benefits. What do you think
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  about just getting some muscle and roughing somebody up to get some answers? Do
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  you know anybody with muscles, not me either. But yeah, and I'm
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  not recommending going out and Nancy carrying anybody. Okay, okay, But in
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  terms of another really old reference, I know I've got it filled up here.
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  Our younger listeners are just gonna be, you know, be googling.
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  Is that they're gonna be looking up a lot of stuff doing the googs.
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  So you do a good job. I'll be standing somewhere and you like sneak
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  up on me like a ninja. I don't even know you're there, like
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  another sidler, right, another sign film trying to walk on my tiptoes like
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  cat but stealth. Right, Let's get into that. Once you have this
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  information, it doesn't mean that you have to let on because ultimately you need
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  to be strategic about this and not Overrea and with everything else. Knowledge is
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  power if you if you reveal your hand too early, it could bite you.
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  Yeah, and normally you're getting there's smoke, there's fire, but you
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  might suspect it, but it might not actually be the case. It can
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  straight up being an honest mistake. Well, let's pivot to what we talk
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  about. So often people's data numbers are incorrect and incomplete. Quick books are
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  behind Everything's just mistakes riddled everywhere. Sometimes embezzlement would be a better excuse than
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  just how ridiculously incorrect and inaccurate data input is, but that could be the
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  case. So yeah, you don't want you don't want to walk yourself into
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  a situation where you're placing blame on your employees when it was your own bookkeeping
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  mistake. No, now's the time to keep your poker face and and ultimately
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  take some time to figure out what you need to do. So you know,
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  Dennis typically does not know what to look for. Right, A self
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  guided investigation is probably not going to accomplish a whole lot. If you suspect
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  someone, you prefer they have no idea because then they're gonna just gonna destroy
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  evidence and you truly will never know. And so just playing it cool is
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  a really good first step. And it's gonna be tough. I mean,
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  not everybody can be Colombo, but it's listen, I've been watching a lot
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  of Colombo lately, and he's he always traps them into something. But that's
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  really hard to do well magnum pi. That's old with Tom Selleck and new
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  New right now too. So just when you're when you're doing a magnum pi
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  side sort of investigation. Yeah, yeah, we're a Hawaiian shirt and a
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  mustache. The Ferrari's pretty dope. It's pretty dope. But yeah, a
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  lot of times, listen, you want to maybe have a conversation with your
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  CPA, with an attorney, you know, maybe even a dental software vendor.
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  There's a lot of places to go that you can gather information. To
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  be in a position of power and knowledge, not emotion and reaction. If
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  you do happen to come across some evidence and with the people you're working with,
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  a roar with yourself. Make sure preserve the evidence. Take screen shots,
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  you know, back it up on hard drives, save it in the
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  cloud, find ways to show that it's still there. I mean, honestly
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  what it's it's It can be very easy, especially in the world of computers
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  and digital situations, to change data numbers or simply deliant, you know,
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  with all the technology and the passwords. It's fraud better or worse than it
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  was pre I don't know the answer. I'm just I'm just thinking about it
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  right all the I mean, fraud and embezzlement's been happening forever, and yet
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  we get all this technology and all these passwords and like it has it improved.
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  I think the tough part is is my experience with people sometimes like people
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  in this room who can never remember their zoom password is wait a second,
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  there's no one else in this room, bastard. But sometimes you know,
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  you trust people with your passwords are different things. If that's not or forte,
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  if you're not the one running the books twenty four to seven, Yeah,
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  you might have an underlying do it well Unfortunately, a lot of practices
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  they promote have or maybe don't have. But that family culture, that that
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  kind of kumbaya thing, and that's a really cool place to be at and
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  to shoot for. That can also give you a false sense of confidence.
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  Shoot family, steal from family, So that family, that family culture,
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  doesn't mean that somebody might not be in a position where stealing from you the
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  quote unquote successful Dennis is a lesser evil than again, Yeah, random example
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  of feed my family one of the other things. And this probably goes to
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  your mind, in my mind of let's play some bait. Let's catch them
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  right right, Actually, you know, put put in some extra cash somewhere,
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  or that's it just don't do it right because as a practice owner,
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  you're probably it's probably gonna be seen. You're gonna they're gonna see through it.
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  If there really is a perpetrator, a suspect, a perp, right,
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  it's gonna be oh man, they must be honor me because this is
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  weird that they did right, that they did this right. You know,
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  don't change financial protocols, don't make any big changes. You don't need to,
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  you know, go to the police with I think and I feel ye,
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  and I want to just talk to the police to make me feel better.
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  Again, that's probably not gonna be the best thing. Here's the big
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  one. The first instinct confront the suspect just to take a swing. Do
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  not confront the suspect. That's right, yeah, do not. Um,
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  there's a time when that's appropriate. But success rates of actually, you know,
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  getting a confession, making an accusation, you're pretty probably not just gonna
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  say yep, you caught me, sorry, right, So you need to
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  have a lot of data, backup, evidence, things of that nature.
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  And then when you present that evidence with the right people, team and timing,
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  a lot of times they will then give up that Yeah, that was
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  me, and then then the SOB story comes. I know. Another thing
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  to not do is to contact your insurance companies right away. No, they're
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  probably not gonna be much help. They'll probably add some more headaches to the
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  thing, Yeah for sure, but there there could be a time where yeah,
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  you can get recoup some of that via insurance. But what are those
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  unintended consequences? But yeah, not firing somebody based off of very little or
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  zero evidence is not a great idea. A lot of states, um,
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  have a worker right you know, into their state state literature, um,
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  and you can very easily get sued, especially if you have no evidence to
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  back it up. Well, and it's good to have checks and balances again,
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  um, you know our our our clients don't have to worry about that
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  because our comprehensive team is constantly monitoring everything, right um. And so that's
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  not the case if you have checks and ballet mean a lot of the stems
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  from well, the practice the practice owner and my boss is so aloof just
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  doing dentistry that I can get away with it. That's a lot of times
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  the starting point when they know he won't see that this number for six more
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  months to a year when they know when there's checks and balances, or there's
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  you know, an external team that monitors it, there's it's there's little chance
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  they're going to get away with it. So that's a deterrent in itself.
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  Now, some folks they're so into their quick books and their numbers and they're
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  always on it, and that's great, they won't get em bezzel from they're
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  also going to burn out and not have a life because they're so involved in
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  it that there's like, nobody will ever embazzle for me because I know everything
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  that happens. I got news for you. If you're a practice owning dentists
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  and specialists and you're spending hours and quick books and dotting every eye and crossing
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  every t all on your own, that is boy, you could be producing
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  a lot of dentistry instead of doing that. Have a team that doesn't have
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  checks and balances that do it. Absolutely, you want to be involved in
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  it. Sure, for sure you want to be the executive summary level CEO,
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  not work or B data input where you know everything. Casey, where
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  are you going to be here in a couple of days where someone can actually
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  ask you some questions about this or any other business side of denistry. Was
• 13:46
  it Biggie or Tupac that said, I'm going going back back to CALLI CALLI.
• 13:52
  Can you insert that into this or do we have to pay? Copyrights
• 13:54
  have to be copyright But hey, you singing it and it's fine. That
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  was terrible. Yeah, I still of out in southern California for a time,
• 14:01
  actually going back to the South Bay area El Segundo, California Top Golf.
• 14:07
  That's right, that's going to be this Friday. If you have not
• 14:09
  If you're in the area and have not registered, please go to four Quadrants
• 14:13
  Advisory dot com slash events and click on the one that says also Gundo.
• 14:16
  Yeah, we're we're recording this a few days prior and we're close to that
• 14:20
  capacity, so it should be a great crowd. If it's already a capassed
• 14:24
  by time you hear this, well give us a call given instead, we'll
• 14:28
  help you out. And then on June second, we're going to be at
• 14:31
  the top Golf in Fishers outside of Indianapolis, our hometown. Wait, I
• 14:35
  don't have to hop on a flight, no, sweet, I'll be at
• 14:39
  that one. Nice joked about it. Yeah, I'll are my fancy golf
• 14:41
  pants. Wait, they actually have those. Shoot, that's about to be
• 14:45
  a joke. Well it's been it's been nice talking to you as usual.
• 14:48
  We only got part part of the way sidetracked by conspiracies. Conspiracies. I'm
• 14:52
  just floating questions out and oh, I could just get in so much trouble.
• 14:58
  I can't say that one. Okay, Yeah, we got to come
• 15:01
  up with new ones because all the old ones are coming true. Hey,
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  let's wrap this up. Casey, thank you so much. I can't wait
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  to see what we're gonna talk about next. Thanks Bo, thank you.
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  That's all the time we have today. Thank you to our guests for their
• 15:15
  insight and for sharing some really great information. And thank you to you the
• 15:18
  listener for tuning in. The Millionaire Dentist podcast is brought to you by Four
• 15:22
  Quadrants Advisory to see if they might be a good fit for you and your
• 15:26
  practice. Going over to four Quadrants Advisory dot com and see why year after
• 15:30
  year they retain over ninety five percent of their clients. Thank you again for
• 15:33
  joining us, and we'll see you next time.