Embezzled: When it happens to you

When a trusted staff member steals from a practice, physicians feel betrayal, violation and embarrassment. No one is immune. Here is how to protect yourself.

By Leigh Page, AMNews staff. April 2, 2001.

When an employee is caught embezzling from a physician's practice, the financial losses are often overshadowed by the emotional fallout -- a loss of trust, a sense of violation and lingering guilt about not minding the till.

For Deborah Silverman, MD, the emotional toll was so great that she quit her solo family practice in Harrison, Ohio, just west of Cincinnati, and now earns her living playing guitar at seniors' homes and writing the occasional medical article.

"You just can't believe that someone you trusted and cared about would do something like that," Dr. Silverman said.

It was last April when one of Dr. Silverman's employees told her that the office's bookkeeper had been pocketing co-payments of $10 or $15 that patients paid at the front desk, then adjusting the books to hide it.

The case went to criminal court, and on Jan. 3 the bookkeeper, identified in court records as Tina L. Spangel of Lawrenceburg, Ind., pleaded guilty to stealing $1,800.

The co-worker discovered the crime a day or two after Spangel resigned from the practice and she took over the books, Dr. Silverman said. The co-worker, who had been assisting on the clinical side of the practice, noticed inconsistencies in the books and asked her husband what she should do.

"You've got to tell Dr. Silverman or else she'll think you did it," he told her, according to Dr. Silverman.

Confronted by Dr. Silverman with the accusation of theft, Spangel denied it and continued to do so until the day she went to court, the physician said. Dr. Silverman said she did not talk to Spangel again and does not know why she changed her plea, which initially was "not guilty." [...]