Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1300039
7 BECKER'S DENTAL + DSO REVIEW - VOL. 4 OCTOBER 2020 DENTAL PROFESSIONALS Patient of Florida dentist vandalizes her family cars with racist slurs, police say By Gabrielle Masson A 33-year-old man has been charged with a hate crime for allegedly scrawling racist slurs on two vehicles belonging to his dentist's family in Florida, according to The Daytona Beach News-Journal. Kyle Christiansen was charged with felony vandalism, punishable by a maximum prison sentence of five years. A hate-crime mod- ifier typically increases the degree and punishment of a charge. On July 29, racist Asian slurs were painted on two vehicles belonging to family members of a New Smyrna Beach, Fla., dentist, according to a police report. The words "rat" and "retard" were also painted on the vehicles. Each vehicle sustained about $2,000 in damage. The dentist told police that she had received a Facebook message July 24 from an account with the name "Pine Cone" that con- tained Asian slurs and said she and her husband needed to die by rat poison. Investigators traced the Facebook account to Mr. Christiansen. The dentist said Mr. Christiansen was a patient of hers and had been in for a cleaning the day before she received the message. She said Mr. Christiansen had been extremely rude to her and a dental assistant, who had broken down in tears, according to the affidavit cited by The Daytona Beach News-Journal. n North Carolina practice files for bankruptcy, closes amid pandemic By Gabrielle Masson A North Carolina dental practice with about 13,000 existing patients has filed for Chapter 7 liquida- tion amid the pandemic, according to The Busi- ness Journals. Wake Forest (N.C.) Smiles closed Sept. 6 after 13 years of business, according to practice owner Jane Quintana, DMD. In an online letter to her patients, Dr. Quintana said she "made the tough decision to retire from Wake Forest Smiles and close my dental practice." The dentist cited pandemic-related difficulties and said she plans to spend more time with her family. n 4 telltale signs of employee theft at dental practices By Katie Adams N early half of all dental practices in the U.S. have experi- enced theft from staff members, according to a survey conducted by the American Dental Association. The survey said about 40 percent of those accused of stealing from a dental practice are employees who worked there for four or more years. The California Dental Association shared four po- tential signifiers of employee embezzlement for dentists to look out for: • Reluctance to share responsibilities or train other employ- ees on how to perform them. • Entering the office early or staying late. • Refusal to take time off. • Evidence of a lifestyle that exceeds the employee's means. n