Ex-Employee Pleads Guilty for Stealing $465K+ from St. Amelia's ...
Source: Erie County District Attorney
A former office manager at an audiology practice in the City of Tonawanda admitted she stole more than $500,000 from the medical practice over roughly five years, from 2016 through 2021. According to prosecutors, she used her position handling office finances to divert money over time, taking advantage of the trust and access that came with managing day-to-day administrative work. The case also involved theft from another employer, but the audiology practice loss alone was substantial.[1]
She was caught after the financial irregularities came to light and prosecutors brought the matter forward, leading to a guilty plea. The legal consequences included criminal charges tied to the theft, and the case illustrates how vulnerable healthcare practices can be when one employee controls payments, bookkeeping, and recordkeeping without strong oversight. Practice owners can learn from this case that separating financial duties, reviewing bank and billing records regularly, and auditing employee access can make long-running embezzlement harder to hide.[1]
How to Protect Your Audiology Practice
- Divide duties so the person selling devices is not the person posting payments or preparing deposits.
- Serialize and audit hearing aid, device, and testing equipment inventory against recorded sales every month.
- Review service contracts, warranty claims, and returns for billing that does not match delivered devices.
- Reconcile high-ticket private-pay collections to bank deposits and investigate any shortfall immediately.
- Use continuous monitoring like Dolos to flag unexplained device movement and missing payments in real time.
Protect Your Practice from Employee Fraud
Cases like this happen every day. Dolos helps healthcare practices detect and prevent internal fraud before it costs you thousands.
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