Show Me The Money

January 20, 2011 | Subscribe to our RSS Feed

Recently I posted a blog about cash control and embezzlement in the dental office, which could just as easily apply to any small business.  In it I discussed having the mail delivered to you, the dentist, unopened so that you could open the envelopes and look at the payments that arrived that day.  It wasn’t necessary for you to examine every envelope and check, but you should examine a majority of them and you should open all the envelopes as a deterrent to theft.  It was then recommended that you follow up this envelope examination with a check of the day sheet at the end of the day.

Hopefully, if you weren’t following those two steps in your office before, you are doing so now.  During one of my many recent 2010 client tax projection meetings one of my clients told me of a twist she puts on looking through the mail for the day.  After opening the envelopes the dentist looks over the EOB and circles the payment amount.  If it should be a multi-patient EOB she circles the payment for each individual patient as well as the total check payment.

Then the dentist takes the check from the envelope and only gives her front desk person the EOB.  The front desk then records the payments and adjustments to whatever patients the EOB’s relate to.  The front desk can still prepare the deposit slip, although they won’t know the check number, and when the dentist checks the day sheet at the end of the day the check payments should match the checks the dentist has in her possession.

I can already hear the rumblings about how long this will take, but the few extra minutes are well worth the headaches (and I am talking king-sized migraine headaches, just ask any of your colleagues who have been embezzled) caused by discovering that an employee has been stealing your hard earned money.

Many thanks to Avionne Hill, DDS a pediatric dentist whose office is located in Silver Spring, Maryland for this wonderful suggestion.

Questions?

larry.goldberg@glassjacobson.com