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Howard:
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It is just a huge honor for me today to be podcasting, interviewing Bryant Truitt, MBA, CCS, CFE of Brytan & Associates. He's a certified fraud examiner. Bryant Truitt's presentations draw from over 20 years of dental experience investigating and correcting profitability and compliance vulnerabilities and helping to protect from future loss. Bryant is CEO of Brytan & Associates, a professional team of investigative experts and certified dental coders who work with owners of private pay Medicaid and Medicare dental practices in the USA and Canada.
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Bryant's programs focus on reducing vulnerability, identifying profitability problems caused by internal and external actions and missteps and how to provide accurate due diligence necessary to grow and continue to provide the highest levels of standard in patient care. He has uncovered over $11 million of fraud and embezzlement. My gosh. First of all, you're in Kerrville, Texas. Is that a suburb like a Dallas or Fort Worth?
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Bryant Truitt :
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It's outside of San Antonio. Are you familiar with Walter Hailey? I live in the same area as Walter Hailey, he used to be up the road from me.
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Howard:
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He was in Huntsville?
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Bryant Truitt :
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No, he was in Hunt.
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Howard:
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Oh, Hunt.
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Bryant Truitt :
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Just [inaudible 00:01:25] near.
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Howard:
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Well, I was close. I got the Hunt. So he was in Hunt, Texas?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Yup.
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Howard:
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And how many years ago did he pass?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Oh my gosh, it's been probably seven years.
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Howard:
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Seven years. Well, a big shout out to Walter Hailey. He did so much for dentistry. Was he a friend of yours?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Yes, he was. We used to laugh ... I could stand on my deck and he would be standing on his and we could wave to one another. He was across the valley from me.
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Howard:
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Yeah. He was just a hell of a guy, hell of a guy. I'm just going to cut right to the chase, how the heck did you get into the dental fraud business? How did that journey start?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Well, I was in my personal dental office and a doctor asked me to step into his office after I finished with getting my teeth cleaned and he said, "My front desk lady managed to take $153,000 from me," and I said, "Well, what can I do for you?" and he said, "I don't know but I need some guidance and counsel." And I said, "Okay. Let me do a little research." So I did some research, I came back to him, get him some guidance and then, I went off and became a certified fraud examiner and I specialize in dentistry and have for over 20 years and that's how I started with my own personal dentist and I also went to Walter Hailey because of boot camp and talked to him and he gave me an opportunity to speak to the doctors that came to his boot camp and that's how I started the business.
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Howard:
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So your initials MBA, Masters in Business Administration, the CFE, Certified Fraud Examiner, what's the CCS?
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Bryant Truitt :
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That's an internal control certification. I'm certified in business internal controls, the application and implementation of internal controls.
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Howard:
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So what does it specifically stand for, CCS? Certified ...
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Bryant Truitt :
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Certified Control Specialist.
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Howard:
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So, for everyone listening to you right now today driving to work, what percent of them listening to you right now are probably being embezzled against and have no idea?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Through the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, we say about 43 to 47% will go through an embezzlement at least once in their career.
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Howard:
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Wow. And they'll pretty much also are sent the lawyers and they'll all get sued once in their career too. So they're going to get sued once, they're going to get embezzlement from ... half of them will get embezzled from and half will get a divorce, so those are some tough things to go through. What's the personality of a dental embezzler? I mean it's not the lady who goes to church every Sunday, sings in the choir and is your son's godmother, is it? Is it the ...
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Bryant Truitt :
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It could be.
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Howard:
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It could be?
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Bryant Truitt :
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And I'm not saying that everyone that works in the dental practice in the front or in the clinical area is going to be that type of individual. Majority of them are outstanding human beings and they do a marvelous job and a very tough job. It's a tough job being on the front desk and handling the patients and all the inquiries, but then, at times, something changes and maybe they have a spouse that gets ill or a family member who gets addicted some unfortunate situation. So, they have a need all of a sudden to have to resort to ways to get financial resources that can aid the situation and unfortunately, I have found, over the 21 years I've been in this, that it's a lifestyle addiction. They become addicted to the lifestyle. A perfect example of that is one that I just finished very recently, and the individual became addicted to the lifestyle and she could not tell her family members, her extended family members also where the money was coming from. She just said that she got a pay increase.
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Well, when you embezzle $421,000, that's more than a pay increase, and she managed to do a lot of damage to this particular dentist. It was very sad but that's what really happened and we went in and caught her and that case has been turned over to the authorities and she will be prosecuted.
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Howard:
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So, mostly, what you're seeing is they're either desperate or they got addicted to a high-end lifestyle?
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Bryant Truitt :
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That is correct, that's the majority of the situations. Some of them can feel that they're not appreciated. It all depends upon the type of practice, the dynamics in the practice, the drama, the conditions, how much oversight the doctor provides. There's over ... right now, of our 21 years, I have found in excess of 70 red flags that can come up in a practice that would give guidance to the doctor and tell the doctor he or she that there is something going on.
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Howard:
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My God, you ought to write an article for Dentaltown Magazine called the 70 red flags that you are being embezzled from. Forty three to 47% of dentists reading this article are being embezzled from and after doing this for 21 years in just dentistry here, 70 red flags, I want to read that one right now. In fact, just tell me, tell me all those 70 red flags. And why is the flag always red, like was there ever a blue flag or a pink flag or a white flag, why is it always a reg flag?
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Bryant Truitt :
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You know, it's a good question and I can answer that. It's just sort like the red flag in front of the bull, okay, we always said that.
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Howard:
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All right.
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Bryant Truitt :
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I can't really tell you why it has to be red. I also use the saying weasel, there's a weasel in the practice, because a weasel is very sneaky. It can change directions very quickly, they are very clever and they are professional liars. I also have programs that are called the weasel programs, and I'll send a list to you and you can take a look at it.
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Howard:
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Right.
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Bryant Truitt :
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The 70 red flags.
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Howard:
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Do you want to go over them now or do you want to go on to other stuff? I mean do you have the list-
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Bryant Truitt :
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I can go over some of them with you right now because the other night, I had a telephone conference with a doctor and he described some of the problems that he was having in his practice and they're classics. They're absolutely in fraud embezzlement 101 red flags, like the lady on the front desk, his office manager is also the book keeper. You don't want to have your office manager also being your QuickBooks person for obvious reasons. She was the only one making deposits at the bank. And so, it was a situation that she was in control of all of the factors within the practice that involved money. Well, there's no separation of duties and when you have that type of thing, you are just providing a atmosphere for nefarious activity and we preach very hard that you've got to have separation of duties. And she also had administrative rights to the software. Well then, she can get into the audit trail and delete the audit trail. Well, who is in control? Is the doctor in control? No. Another party is in control, and that's not where you want to be.
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And if I can say a couple of things to help prevent this type of activity is one, find a CPA that has dentist clients, absolutely. At least 10, 12, 15 dentist clients. Companies like Cain Watters is a specialist in this area and find yourself an insurance carrier that you can talk to about a fidelity bond. I recently wrote an article on our website about the need of having a fidelity bond, which is insurance that will protect you against employees regardless if it's front or back that either steals dollars or either steal property. And I'll give you an example. Recently, one of my clients, I finally got that client to take out a modest $25,000 fidelity bond and cost him $92 a year. That's like [found 00:11:06] money and they will help protect you with the fidelity bond and then, you let everybody in the practice know that you carry insurance and that if there is money missing or a property missing, the insurance comes in, takes over and they are the ones who will investigate it and they will prosecute. Does that give couple of ideas right there?
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Those are two really easy things. I'm sure you know a lot of CPAs that handle dental clients and a doctor coming out of dental school needs to find a dental CPA and needs to have a fidelity bond. Does that give you a couple of ideas?
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Howard:
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That does. Do you think that dental embezzlement is bigger today than when you entered the field 21 years ago or do you think it's the same or do you think there's less of it?
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Bryant Truitt :
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It's dramatically increased.
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Howard:
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Why?
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Bryant Truitt :
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When we got into the business 21 years ago, we might go into a practice and find one or two schemes working. Today, we have found as many as 13, 14 different schemes working in a practice and one of the reasons for that is that the people have gotten a lot smarter. They are much more astute when it comes to computer and the software than they were 21 years ago obviously. But in addition to that, they now have the ability to get online and learn more about the software. The software manufacturers, providers are doing a better job in training than they did years ago.
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So, the whole industry, no matter if it's in dentistry, medicine, non-profits, commercial businesses, the software is more sophisticated but so are the people that are using it and it's just gotten worse. So, the schemes have gotten more interesting. They're better formatted to work and what happens is they always have one scheme that they focus on. But they'll have these other schemes working where if the doctor senses that something is wrong and the perpetrator senses that they are being watched, they'll move to another scheme and take the pressure off the main scheme they're after. Say it's cash, they'll move over and they'll pay attention to maybe adjustments or some other scheme that they can put together and then, when the pressure moves off, they'll come back to their main scheme. They always return to their main area of focus.
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And another thing that we found in practices over the years, because we do boots on the ground, yes, we do internet investigations but our specialty is boots on the ground and that's where you find what's really going on in the practice. You cannot find everything that goes on in a practice through the internet, but when you have boots on the ground, you find out where the action really is, where is that thread that will let the rug come apart and you'll find everything that's underneath it. Does that make sense to you?
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And you get into the fabric of the practice and we have never found a practice that there's not someone else in that practice that senses something is going on. It is amazing. Everybody knows what everybody else makes in that practice but they also ... one person somewhere in that practice has a sense that something's not right, so we interview everybody in the practice during our business. Does that ...
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Howard:
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And they sensed it's not right because she's either living above her means or ...?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Yup. Why does she come in on holidays when nobody else is in the practice. Her whole personality has changed. She's more irritable or the guy, if it's a male office manager ... We caught one in New York state last year who we found by interviewing that he had another side consulting business going on on the side, and his whole personality of being in the practice and working with the people in the practice and cross training, all of that changed, he wasn't doing that anymore. His focus now was not the practice he was employed with but trying to establish his own consulting business, so the personality changes and that's one of the things that we look at.
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And we also consider this. This can be a very powerful assessment tool in this industry as it can be in all industries, and we find that there's a lot of traits, that person [inaudible 00:16:41]
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Howard:
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What percent of the time is the person working alone on this embezzling versus two people in the office working together?
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Bryant Truitt :
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I would say the majority of the time, probably 75-80% of the time it's one person, but there's that person that senses something is wrong and it's generally the person, another person in the practice that has a lot of tenure in dentistry or a lot of tenure in the practice or maybe a friend of the office administrator or the office person that is doing a nefarious activity. We've also seen a significant increase in prescription abuse and we did a major practice in a major metro area and we discovered a very active drug ring in the practice.
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It was a pedo practice, pedo-ortho practice and the individuals managed to get a family member in as the receptionist, and also, the office manager and they were able to set up a drug ring on pain pills and we alerted the law firm we were working with and also, they alerted the local authorities and they came in and took out nine employees.
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Howard:
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Nine people were in on it?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Nine people were in on it. They got a-
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Howard:
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So, prescriptions for what? Hydrocodone? Vicodin?
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Bryant Truitt :
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No, hydrocodone.
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Howard:
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And how many pills were the prescription and what were they selling them for?
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Bryant Truitt :
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1,800 to 2,000 a month and they were selling them in an apartment complex that they lived in and also, at a flea market.
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Howard:
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1,800 to 2,000 a month. Did you ever find out what a pill was going for?
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Bryant Truitt :
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They were selling them for over $10 a piece, and they were doing very well. $10 a piece so 1,800 pills, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that one out.
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Howard:
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$22,000 a month, that's $240,000 a year. There's doctors, dentists, physicians and congressmen, they don't make that much money.
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Bryant Truitt :
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There are many other people in the industry.
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Howard:
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What percent of the time is the person embezzling think they are safe because they could blackmail the dentist because maybe they are having a relationship and the dentist is married and if he caught her, she could just say, "Well, do you want get divorced?" "What's that going to cost you?" "What did I embezzle, that was less, so shut up and go away and I'll just leave," or they are splitting opiod prescriptions themselves and she could turn him over to the board. What percent of the time is there a blackmail element involved?
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Bryant Truitt :
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A real element or an alleged element? That's one of the areas that some people have used in the past along with hostile workplace, age discrimination. There's several terms that are used commonly when people are caught like that and one of them is ... also, they don't refer to it as a relationship, they call it for services rendered. They used the term services rendered. I got a housing allowance or he paid me for travel to and from my residence to the practice. There's any number of terms that can be used but generally, it's for services rendered and I haven't had but ... one, two ... maybe a half a dozen in 20 years.
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Howard:
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So services rendered means not a volunteer romantic relationship but a prostitution?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Howard:
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That's what services rendered means?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Yeah.
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Howard:
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Okay. So talk to my homies. You were talking about the red flags, you were talking about the personality of a dental embezzler but you touched on separation of duties that you can't have your office manager being your bookkeeper and making deposits and depositing the checks and admin rights to the computer, what are the low-hanging fruit separation of duties should every office be working on?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Oh, let's start with the deposits and also, the checks that are coming into the practice but your ... That's going to be going away in ... in the next five years, you'll probably see very, very few checks come in. That portion of the banking industry will be going away. So, one of the things that can be done is when they do direct deposit from the insurance companies, they won't tell the doctor that the checks are direct deposit and that they can get the EOBs offline, online off of the website, and what they will do is they'll let the deposit come in and they'll go and get the EOB from the website and they will make an adjustment to the EOB that is supposed to be taken off of the ledger, say it's $20, they'll increase it to $30, which opens an opportunity for them to take cash. That's one of the schemes that they can run. By inflating the EOB which they have now in their hands downloaded off of the website.
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Another thing that can be done is when a patient comes in and they have credit card, they can change the credit card ... credit card or check ... we'll use a check. When they a check from a patient, they'll say that it was a credit card transaction. They will hold the check, wait for cash to come in, put the check into deposit and take the cash and offset the adjustment to the patient. Okay? The books will be satisfied. The balances will be there. So, there's any number of ways that people on the front desk and it does not have to be the office manager. It can be anyone on the front desk who can change transactions in the software.
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That's why you need to have, and HIPAA requires passwords and security levels in the software for users. And the problem you have there is the fact that doctor never changes passwords, and they'll learn the passwords. Everybody on the front desk will know the passwords and they can change the passwords and then, it becomes somebody else's. It's probably not the person that took the money. Have I explained that one well enough?
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Howard:
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Oh yeah, absolutely.
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Bryant Truitt :
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And some of the-
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Howard:
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What about using a credit card? A patient comes in and pays with a credit card?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Well, a credit card is interesting. They can use the credit card and they will change the amount of the actual transaction. Let's say the transaction is $20, they'll change the transaction to $25 and they'll put the transaction through a $25 instead of $20. That gives them $5 that they can do nefarious activities for in the practice. The adjustment on the computer will be the $25. They'll give a $5 adjustment and credit the patient with $20 and that gives them $5 that they can work with some time during the day or the week, to get $5 out of the practice. Okay?
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So, by using the credit card, what you need to do is ensure that the bulk payment ... Not the bulk payment, the batched report that comes out of the credit card processor at the end of the day, it has all of the transactions and the totals, you keep those. You don't want them throw those slips away and when the merchant statement comes at end of the month, you compare the transaction to the merchant statement, and you can see if the two transactions matched. That will help you, and then, you go to the ledger and look at how much was the transaction that day for that particular patient and then, you're going to find out that there was a $5 difference. Okay?
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Howard:
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Wow. Any other schemes that you're working with?
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Bryant Truitt :
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We ran into one that was very interesting. We had a case where gift cards ... a lot of practices have used gift cards as motivational tools in the practice to meet goals and objectives and this particular individual had the doctor provide this individual with $2,000 and went out and bought $20 gift cards and awarded based upon goals that were set in the practice to the team and awarded two-three months of gift cards at $20 a piece and then, all of a sudden, the [inaudible 00:27:30] program went away but all of the gifts cards were cashed. Well, they think those gift cards can't be traced, they can be if you know how to do it and that's how we caught the individual was with the gift cards, we were able to trace the transactions. And she stole about $1,800 in cash by using the gift cards and she only awarded $200 worth of bonus gift cards to his team. Okay? Well, if you know how to trace those cards, we can find out exactly where the cards were used and what they were used for and that's what we did.
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Howard:
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You were driving to your new office today, you are 27 years old, you just bought ... the old man sold his practice, he's 65, he moved on, all of his old employees have been with him, 20-30 years have been there and now, you bought this thing for $750,000 and you got student loans, you got overhead, what should they be thinking about in setting up their books, their separation of duties? Coach this young kid how to set themselves up so that this doesn't happen to them, so that they can be the 55%, the 56-7% that don't get embezzled from.
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Bryant Truitt :
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It goes back to the first thing I mentioned is find yourself a really good CPA that understands dentistry and has at least ... I feel at least 10 dental clients and that CPA will look at computer reports off of your software, they just don't look at the bank statement. They peel back the onion and they look at reports that can be printed off of the software, off of Dentrix, there's Eaglesoft or whoever it is and you match that report up with the deposit slips and the bank statement and you track the money from the time the patient comes in the door to the time the patient leaves and you see that the money went to the bank. They've got to learn how to follow the money. The old saying is very true, just follow the money. From the time it comes in the door to the time it goes to the bank, you follow it.
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CPAs that are not familiar with dentistry will only look at the bank statement and you will not find the fraud just with the bank statement. You just can't do it, it's not there because there's too many ways to change the transactions. I've had cases in ... one comes to mind in California where the individual changed the deposit slip at the bank, where they fill out those ... over the counter, deposit slips in the bank and changed it right there in the bank and took the money in the bank. That's one. Number two is make sure you get a fidelity bond to help protect you and you make everybody aware that if money is stolen, you're going to turn it over to the insurance company and they're going to investigate it and they're going to prosecute. That's a big deterrent.
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Next thing is ensure that you got separation of duties and then, make sure that you got cross training in those separation of duties and keep your ears really big and listen for the drama and when you hear the drama and you see the drama in your practice, try to find out who is the drama person. That is one of the ways that they disguise what's really going on. Wherever the drama person is and stirring the pot, you want to take a serious look at what they're doing in the practice and how they're doing it and you're going to find in the majority of cases, that can very well be your perpetrator. And that just comes from 21 years of doing this.
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So, the software used in dental colleges, I lecture two of them, is not necessarily what they're going to find in the practice and they need to become knowledgeable of the software. What reports can I get, call support, become knowledgeable of that and learn what you can about your reports and how to read them. Another thing that really comes to mind is if you have a consultant and your office manager comes to you and say, "Get rid of the consultant, we don't need them," that is a red flag. That is a significant red flag because somebody is now watching and when you watch, then, you can trust and verify.
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Howard:
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What consultants do you recommend or have you worked with over the years?
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Bryant Truitt :
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I work with a lot of them. One that comes to mind is Steve Anderson's group ToPS. Another one is ... I've worked with Fortune Management. I've worked with Sunrise Dental Solutions. I've worked with a number of them.
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Howard:
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Where is Sunrise Dental Solutions? I've heard of Steve Anderson ToPs, we've had him on the show. Fortune Management.
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Bryant Truitt :
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It's Tony Feck.
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Howard:
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What's that?
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Bryant Truitt :
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That's Tony Feck. Sunrise Dental Solutions is Tony Feck and John Muller.
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Howard:
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Tony Feck and John Miller. Where they are-
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Bryant Truitt :
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Muller. Muller, M-U-L-L-E-R.
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Howard:
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Where are they out of?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Lexington I believe it is, Lexington, Kentucky.
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Howard:
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I hate repeating myself all the time on this podcast. What I mean, I just always see the best return on investment is getting your house in order, getting a consultant, someone who's done 100 offices in a decade, but the dentist always wants to focus on the dishes they prepare at the restaurant. They want to learn more fillings, crowns, implants, root canals, all that and meanwhile, they're taking PPOs or losing money on, they're getting embezzled from, they wonder why their overhead is so high. They try to do the right thing like work extra hours but who cares if you work extra hours, if you work through lunches, at end of the day, if you've done a procedure, you're losing money on because you don't know your cost and then, the lady that's taken the check up there is embezzling.
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Bryant Truitt :
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By the way, Tony Feck is a dentist. Has a very successful cosmetic practice in Lexington and John Muller is a retired dentist and he does a lot of the mentoring with Tony Feck but there's a lot of good people out there but when you have ... I've even had an office manager, two of them walk out when I walk in and we just use our first names and they've left and never came back. So, we've had some interesting times together.
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Howard:
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Oh, that-
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Bryant Truitt :
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We were very passionate about what we do and we've done it for 21 years and we're good at what we do.
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Howard:
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So, if someone has a red flag or wants to just talk, how do they ... so if they go to ... now, this is confusing because you're artsy-fartsy, your name's Bryant Truitt but your website, you switched the A and the T to Brytan & Associates, so don't make a mistake. If they go to your website, brytanassociates.com, the first dental embezzlement investigation [forum 00:36:05], you can email info@brytanassociates.com. Are you concerned about fraud or embezzlement in your dental practice. I see this download your free vulnerability index to assess your chances. So you click that ...
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Bryant Truitt :
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And that's a list of 20 points that will raise a red flag if you answer it truthfully. If you do have a problem, the red flag will come up when you're answering because at the bottom of that document, it's a one-page document, at the bottom, it gives you a scale and if you answer no to ... I believe it's 14 of them, then, you definitely have a problem in your practice that we need to talk about.
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Howard:
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Okay, so I'm downloading it now to see. Oh, okay, so when you download it ... okay, assess your level of risk for fraud, embezzlement, practice management waste or abuse, schedule your free 30-minute consultation day. So, you give them a free 30-minute consultation?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Yes. We can use the vulnerability index, we can talk about it and that's what led to this list of problems that this doctor voiced to me the other evening, and so, from that point, we discussed next steps and we make a proposal and he make a business decision and we go from there, sir.
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Howard:
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You know, I always tell the dentist, you just need to stay humble and hungry and curious and one of the things that is so ... you ask anybody to describe a dentist, a physician or a lawyer, they never say humble, they always say arrogant. A lot of them are ambitious so they're hungry and intellectually curious. I mean you can't go to eight to 12 years of college, [earning 00:37:59] thousand bucks, I'll be an intellectually curious, but I think one of the things that hurts them so bad, when they get embezzled or when they go to the state board or when they get sued, it's just their ego, I mean they just, "Oh my God," because it doesn't fit their personality profile that someone could have done this to them.
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They can't accept that someone sue them for a fail ... When you take a return to Walmart, they don't even ask a question. You could take in a sleeping bag that was covered in mud and twigs and leaves and say, "When I bought this, it had a rip on it," and the lady is not going to say, "No, I think it had a rip on it when you were sleeping in your sleeping bag down by the river creek," they don't even question the return, they just take it. But when dentists get embezzled against or when they get sued or when they go before the state board, oh my God, that just knock some off their bubble, they get so depressed, it just crushes them. Do you agree or disagree?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Totally agree. Totally agree. And I'm blessed I have wonderful clients. Some of them have been with me 20 years but that is their greatest fear is I don't want to go before the board and I don't want to go and have a lawsuit. And there's people out there that can help them and the greatest thing that can harm them is for them to try to carry these loads by themselves and be self-serving. You cannot be self-serving if you've been sued and you're up before for the board, you're committing suicide, but trying to communicate this at times is extremely difficult, very difficult.
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Howard:
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People get mad because on Facebook, they know who all their friends are and they get mad on Dentaltown because some people choose to be anonymous. They're not anonymous to me. I have two employees that verify every person on Dentaltown so we know who they are but this is another reason why we need an anonymous. A lot of people don't want to get on there and share a story that they've been embezzled against when everybody knows their name is John Henry Jones III and he lives right downtown Dallas. Same thing with posting a root canal that failed on Facebook. They always post ... the root canal, it's like the [inaudible 00:40:17] shot with Antlers, the width of a basketball court, they never post their broken file, their failed root canal.
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I leave Dentaltown anonymous if you're choosing because there has to be a place to ask what you might think as a dumb question, an embarrassing question, sharing a story that you do have right now but we do have that report abuse button, so if someone anonymously you think is trolling or being weird or whatever, all you got to do is hit that report abuse button and that post will be sent to a bunch of volunteers and they'll decide if this guy is being abusive because ... what percent of the time when the dentist call you are they really embarrassed about that this happened?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Probably I would say 25% of the time.
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Howard:
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And what percent of the time are they just madder than mad and want to go get their 12 gauge shotgun?
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Bryant Truitt :
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I would say, you know, 30 to 40% until I can get a hold of them and calm them down and show them that emotion is their single biggest enemy and that if they get emotional about it and if they confrontational about it, it could cost them a lot of money. They need to step back from it. They need to seek guidance and counsel from a good attorney that can specialize in labor and employee law. Someone like Barbara Freet, call Barbara. I had a case near Dallas last year where the doctor just went absolutely ballistic and he-
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Howard:
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That's not like a doctor. Are you sure he was a dentist, went absolutely ballistic? I'm just teasing Don.
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Bryant Truitt :
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I'm dead serious.
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Howard:
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I know you are.
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Bryant Truitt :
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And he handled it himself and it turned very bad for him and she sued him along the lines of we talked about earlier, and it got very nasty, but you have to look at this as a business situation. You cannot look at it as an emotional situation. And if you do, you're going to pay dearly for it and I don't want that to happen to any of my clients. It's maybe 20%-25% of ... it's a small percentage. Most of them call and say, "How can you help me?" "Am I really looking at what I think I'm looking at." And they talked to other people that have referred them to me such as maybe Jim Du Molin or any number of people.
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Or they talked to Cain Watters or they've talked to their CPA or they talked to an attorney and they've gotten guidance and they have listened. Or they have talked to their spouse and their spouse says, "This is a serious situation. You need to get guidance and counsel," or they talked to their insurance company. It can be any number of things, Howard, but they got to control the emotion.
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Howard:
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Yeah. Barbara Freet, you mentioned. We did a podcast with her. She's an amazing person, so you just recommended her. If you listen to this, go back and watch Barbara Freet. What's that?
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Male :
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[inaudible 00:43:44]
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Howard:
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It's episode 510. What episode is this?
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Male :
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[inaudible 00:43:48]
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Howard:
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And this is like 725, so it's about 200 days ago. Those are all great guys. How many times did they call you up and they're crying?
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Bryant Truitt :
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I may have had two of those, I may have. I know I've had one but I may have had two but that's all.
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Howard:
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So they're still holding it together?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Yeah.
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Howard:
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Like I said I know my homies and I know a guy who got sued and he got sued big time and he basically ... that was the end of smiling with dentistry and he only practiced for about a year after the lawsuit and then, he retired. He retired early. I mean he could do it, but I watched this guy with this bubbling personality, just loved dentistry more than anything in the whole world, then went through this long dong drag out trial that last like two weeks and then, he lost and got spanked hard and he never thought of dentistry with a smile on his face again and then, he finally walked away from it.
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Bryant Truitt :
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I am very saddened by that because there's really no need for that. There's a lot of professionals out there that can give him assistance and guidance like yourself and many others.
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Howard:
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It's so funny because they just keep telling me how it's not fair and I'm like what is fair on earth. I mean when you're a gazelle and you go down to the creek to drink and an alligator swallows you, is that fair? I mean when you're a little bird flying around and a hawk schloops you up, is that fair? I mean how do people rationalize fair when they're trapped on a rock flying around the sun until they die. I mean I don't think ... I think when there's seven and a half billion humans trapped on a rock orbiting the sun and no one gets off alive, to even start with the concept of fair, just stay humble. That's what I always say, just stay humble and if you get knocked down, Muhammad Ali said the champions get back to their feet and you never have a failure because if you learned something from it, it wasn't a failure, it was a lesson, so God just ... just stay humble, stay hungry and keep riding around the sun once a year.
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Next week, 6,000 dental students will graduate from dental schools in the United States and try to all go out and get jobs and podcasters or podcasting behavior is huge in dental schools and dentists under 30, so you're talking to a bunch of kids right now, put on your dad hat. If your daughter just walked out of dental school next week and graduates, what would you tell her about this? What advice would dad give her?
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Bryant Truitt :
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About dentistry or about the podcast or what ...
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Howard:
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Anything. I mean you've been in dentistry 21 years, what advice would you give her?
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Bryant Truitt :
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It's a great profession, it's a great career. I admire the dentists, all of them that I work with. I'm very honored to work with the dentists that I have over the 21 years. I've got some great friends. They've taught me a lot. At the same time, please, get involved in the business side of your practice, please. All you have to do is to ask the two biggest questions that embezzlers hate to hear and that is why and tell me more. Why did we do that and tell me more. When you started asking those kind of questions and you go up to the front desk and say, "I want to look at the daily reports. I want to see those reports at the end of the day," and you ask questions about your daily reports, that's their greatest fear is to be asked why and tell me more. And if they cannot answer your question by the end of the day, then, you know you have an issue and you better start digging because facts have no feelings.
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And if they come to you with fact instead of a bunch of feelings and if they become confrontational or they come, "Oh, that's no big thing. Forget about that," then, you know that you've got an issue there. That would be my ... open the door, learn to ask questions about what's going on and why and tell me more about this. If you have knowledge, you are in control. If you don't have the knowledge of your practice and you don't have your AR report and you don't know how to write an insurance report and you don't know the problems of credit balances and you don't know how to turn a credit balance into a [shared 00:48:56] time, then, you got issues and you better get them straightened out. That's what I would tell them.
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Howard:
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I've seen this my whole life, so go back to my childhood in Kansas where I born and raised. It's always the 80-20 rule, like 20% of the wheat farmers, dairy farmers, cow farmers, soybean were making all of the money and 80% weren't and it always seem like when the dad would sit on a tractor all day and the mom was completely involved in the business, sitting at the kitchen table with the calculator and knew all the costs and everything, they were crushing it. But when the guy sitting on the tractor didn't know his own business, no one was helping him, whatever, they just bumbled along through life. I bet you that 55% who don't get embezzled, a lot of them, their spouse will come in and do a separation of duty.
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I know a lot of dentists who has a sister or a grandma or a mom or somebody that comes from bookkeeping, banking, financing, whatever and they come in and they're the only ones that can do the adjustments. The canceled checks should be mailed to the dental office, those should be mailed home. They should know that all the canceled checks are going to come to your house and you're going to open them up and look at them up. It's about separation of duties, and again, a lot of times, it's always that one person who does everything, wears all the hats. If it has to do with money, insurance deposits, anything like that, she wears all the hats, like you say, she comes in early, she works alone. She doesn't ever take vacation, she doesn't want anybody to know her stuff and then, your spouse starts coming in.
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I think if you're a dentist in the family, usually, you got a sister or a cousin or an uncle, somebody is in banking, finance, insurance, accounting, bookkeeping, I mean especially something as big extended families, you've got a sister, first cousin, grandma, mom, dad, you got someone that can come in your dental office and help you with the situation, dude, because I know my homies and this is what I'll tell you. There's no research or evidence that when you study the brains of 100 different mice or 100 difference chimpanzees or 100 different dolphins that one's a genius and the other is not, take away pathology, so we probably all got the same damn brain, it's what are you interested in.
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And if you're not interested in the business, the bookkeeping, I mean what percent of dentists wouldn't even know how to enter an insurance check and make a deposit? What percent of them don't even have any of those skill sets?
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Bryant Truitt :
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I would say today in the age groups, even the ones that got out of dental schools, I've had them look at me ... look like they're in the headlights when I mentioned what is an EOB, they don't even have a clue.
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Howard:
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What percent of the dentists could not even do the front office activities?
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Bryant Truitt :
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80-90%.
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Howard:
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Yeah, and those 80 to 90% of the dentists got As in calculus, geometry, physics, they're not dumb, they're just not interested. So dude, if you're not interested in this, you can't have one person doing it all for you or it is probably a 43-47% chance she's going to be scheming money off the top and embezzling. You got to separate the duties. You need to find someone that you can trust, a spouse, a sister, a cousin, someone to break up some of these duties so that it's going to take at least two people. The only time I've seen two people embezzling is when the mother and the daughter work together, two sisters work together.
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These two girls actually went through grammar school in high school together and they're like Bonnie and Clyde together, and I think your best advice which I've been saying forever is "Gosh, Don, get a CPA who specialize in dentistry." I mean in 1900, there was only one type of doctor and he did everything. He delivered your baby, fixed your broken leg, he did everything. Now, the MDs have 58 specialties, the dentists have nine and there's CPAs, for the last 10-20 years, they've just been focusing on only dentistry.
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On Dentaltown, there's a CPA guy named Tim Lott who we podcasted on he's part of this American Association of Dental CPAs. We've had Cain Watters on just a few weeks ago. Cain Watters out of Dallas. What I love the most about Cain Watters is they only even take you on as a client unless you bring your spouse with you and at the end of the year ... and they'll block off two days and if they don't think you paid attention and listen and got it, they'll fire you as a client. I mean they say divorce is only a third, a third, a third, a third over money, a third over sex and a third over substance abuse, so if you're not cheating, beating and drunk, you're probably fighting over money, and you mislead your spouse all the time, you say, "My God, I did five crowns a day," the spouse is saying, "Well, how much you get for a crown?" You say a thousand and she say "Damn, we made 5,000."
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But she didn't see that, that thousand dollar crown was a PPO and $400 was adjusted off and then, after you made rent, mortgage, claim and bill, the computer interns, professional dues, whatever, you lost money and that $3,000 you put into the ... that's in a savings account, you owe a third of that to the IRS. Again, from two old dogs who have been in this industry long time, get your house in order, get your business in order. Buy a dental consultant before you buy a laser, a CAD/CAM, a scanner, and my biggest red flag to dentists on this, my biggest red flag to dentists is when they look in the mirror and they know they're not interested in the details of the business. They don't know their numbers, and I'll refer them back to Shark Tank.
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I wish you and your spouse would start watching Shark Tank because they ask the same 20 questions over and over and over and when Mark Cuban and Mr. Wonderful are asking these questions, I'm thinking what percent of the dentists couldn't answer any of those questions about their own damn dental office that they've been standing in for 20 years.
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Bryant Truitt :
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Unfortunately, you're 1,000% correct and I've done the work with Cain Watters for 20 years and they do an incredible job for their clients and I work with a lot of CPAs and a lot of attorneys, but get a dental CPA for God's sake, you've got to do that and if you don't, you're going to be in serious trouble, because they know how to peel back the onion, okay?
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Howard:
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My final question, you're born and raised in Texas, right?
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Bryant Truitt :
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I was born in Houston and I'm an oil field [brat 00:55:55].
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Howard:
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So, are you a Mavericks fan, a Spurs fan, a Cowboys fan, who are your professional teams?
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Bryant Truitt :
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None of them. I'm strictly the University of Texas Longhorns.
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Howard:
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Oh, you like college ball. There's two distinct types of football fans, you either love the NFL or you love college but you don't really meet a lot of people who love them both, do you?
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Bryant Truitt :
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No, you really don't, Howard. You know, I hadn't thought about that but you're correct. You're 1,000% correct. I haven't thought about that until now.
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Howard:
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It really is and you think if you love football, you wouldn't care if it's college or NFL but no, those fans, you can separate them right down the middle. They're either all college or all NFL. It's kind of like in the mouth. You either have a bunch of gum disease and no cavities or you got a bunch of cavities, no gum disease because those bacteria don't live in the same biofilm so well. So you're a Longhorns fan, that's a ... what city is that in?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Austin, the city weird.
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Howard:
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The city weird. Okay, so can my homies call you?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Absolutely.
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Howard:
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What's your number?
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Bryant Truitt :
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My cell number is 210-241-6329.
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Howard:
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That's 210-241-6329. Can they email you?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Yes, sir. Go to the website Brytan & Associates and they can email me very quickly at bryant@brytan, B-R-Y-T-A-Nassociates.com.
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Howard:
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All right, buddy, and if you ever get the urge, you may make an online CE course on Dentaltown. Those millennials love watching online. We got 411 courses but maybe someday, you'll create an online CE course or if you got that 70 red flags, you got to write an article, 40-
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Bryant Truitt :
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I'm going to talk to your son about the 70 red flags. I'm tied up in a case right now but I will talk to your son about getting you a list of those and you can look them over and maybe we can talk about them, okay?
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Howard:
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All right, buddy. Hey, Bryant, thank you so much for all that you do for dentistry.
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Bryant Truitt :
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Well, thank you for what all you do for dentistry.
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Howard:
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All right, buddy, I hope you have a rocking hot day.
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Bryant Truitt :
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And you have a super weekend and a holiday.
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Howard:
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Oh, that's right, it's Memorial Day weekend. You're going to do anything fun?
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Bryant Truitt :
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Yes, work.
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Howard:
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Yeah. Same here. I'm podcasting all day Memorial Day because that's when a lot of these busy guys are free, so it's going to be a great, great day for podcasting. Okay, thanks, Bryant.
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Bryant Truitt :
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Thank you again.
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