RE: Employee Theft (Name Withheld)
From: Multiple Respondents
If your office is really that busy, these could
be nothing more than collections which someone
forgot to list in the rush. Your most tactful
bet might be to have an office meeting of all of
the staff to review office policies. At such a
meeting you can say that upon the advice of your
accountant you will be reconciling the co-pays
on a daily basis. This will put the blame for
being a "badguy" on your accountant and will let
any potentially dishonest employees know that
their actions have been noticed and WILL be
noticed in the future. If these omissions really
are an honest mistake, there's no harm done and
you haven't singled out one employee.
Paul Busman, DPM
Troy, NY
Your trusted employee has probably just started
stealing since the co-pay amounts are small and
she's been with you six years ( I had BIG time
theft in my office). I would confront her nicely
or just institute a co-pay tracking sheet and
inform her that checks and balances will be done
against the charts each evening. Ensure that
the new cards are in the charts. Oxford, UHC,
Blue Cross Blue Shield, and others, in many
instances, now have "hefty" copays.
Hopefully, this will work, if not get rid of the
thief. She's probably not as "nice" as you
think or she wouldn't steal in the first place
(though sometimes opportunity meets need). That
day could've just been a "light" day for your
trusted employee.
Name Withheld
It happens to the best of people, at least you
realized it. The first thing you have to do is
be 100% sure you are right. If you are, then yes
you must do something about it. Certainly, a
person who steals from you should not stay in
your employment!!! She has worked for you for 6
years and done a good job. Of course she has -
if she did a bad job you would of fired her and
she wouldn't of been able to steal from you.
It is easy to find out if she is stealing
because if she has been stealing all along - she
will continue. The decision to call the police
or just to terminate her(once you were 100% sure
she stole) is up to you. Make sure before doing
anything, that she does not have keys to your
door etc etc.
For the future - you can prevent this from
happening by reconciling your co-pays every day.
You say you run a high volume practice - it
would take you no more than 5-10 minutes to look
that over. Make a list of patients for the day,
and next to that, their co-pay amount and if
they paid in cash or check.
A similiar event happened with a doc I used to
work for. I suspected his secretary was robbing
from him and warned him. He told me it couldn't
be, that she wouldn't steal. I told him to look
into it. He allowed her to deposit checks in the
account and would stop by weekly to pick up
cash. Her trick was to usually tell him she went
to the bank and deposited the checks. She would
make believe there was no cash and would pocket
it.
He didn't check the accounts and so he never
knew. He was convinced when a few patients told
me they didn't even have checking accounts and I
had them tell this to him directly.
Jeffrey Kass, DPM
Forest Hills, NY
