Medical Doctors, Taxes, Embezzlement, Liability and Tax Problems
I have represented many Medical Doctors in my tax career. These are often kind, intelligent and caring people who want to help their patients to heal. They are totally dedicated to being the best in their medical specialty area. They are willfully ignorant of what goes in the front office and the back office. In fact running their practice usually is confusing to them. So they rely on others and trust others to take care of their businesses. Any Doctor who accepts health insurance is processing hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars per year in medical insurance payments and patients co-payments. It makes for a very nice income for doctors usually in the neighborhood of $150,000 and up, sometimes way up.
The doctor is busy, the practice is busy. The employees look busy, but sometimes the busiest person in the practice is the Practice Manager, Officer Manager, or in-house bookkeeper or accountant. That can be a problem if they are stealing from the practice. I have never met a Doctor who has not suffered embezzlement losses. When i speak to Doctor groups and they say that they have never had an embezzlement, I tell them they just don’t know it yet.Even when I was working for the IRS, this was a frequent type of case that I had. People are jealous of the Doctor and their lifestyle and start stealing money from the practice. A little at first to see if they will get caught and then more and more.
I had one practice that lost $6 million over 7 years. All because the doctors buried their heads in the sand. It is sad. Usually this involves not paying the employee withholding taxes, and hiding that from the Doctor.
Often the embezzler is someone that they know, respect and trust. Some embezzlers are friends from high school or college. Some are from their same church or synagogue. It does not matter where they come from they are thieves plan and simple.
RMS Tax Consulting LLC has the knowledge and experience and forensic accounting and computer skills to help bust your thief and deliver evidence to the police so that you can prosecute them. Please call Richard Schickel at 520-448-3531 to talk over how we can get started.