'Strange billing practices' detected by Sun Life
The costly issue of insurance fraud has been put in the spotlight after the sentencing of a Calgary dentist to jail.
Alena Smadych will be spending three years in prison after admitting to a decade-long insurance fraud scheme worth nearly $700,000.
She pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000 and acknowledged defrauding five insurance companies over a 10‑year period through falsified dental billings, according to a CBC report.
An agreed statement of facts cited by the publication says she submitted more than $684,000 in false claims between 2013 and 2023, including repeated billings for root canals and fillings that were never performed. Her clinic, All About Family Dental on Elbow Drive, was at one point the highest billing clinic in Canada for root canals, according to the report.
False billings
The fraud came to light after Sun Life detected “strange billing practices” in 2021, according to CBC. The insurer uncovered patterns such as direct billing for repeat procedures and ledgers that distinguished between actual work done on patients and “fake work” used to bill insurance companies.
Court heard that clinic billings also spiked at year‑end: on Dec. 24, 2020 alone, the clinic submitted $19,000 in claims for 17 patients, with Smadych as the sole billing dentist, according to the report.
At a June guilty plea, Smadych admitted to more than $125,000 in false claims to Sun Life and Blue Cross, CBC reports. In the months that followed, three more insurers came forward, and she admitted to a further $558,000 in fraudulent billings, bringing the total close to $700,000. Defence counsel also told the court that Smadych has recently paid another $500,000 to Sun Life in connection with a separate fraud allegation, according to the report.
A Toronto man’s alleged four year scheme to pose as a pilot and flight attendant for free travel highlights how weak credential controls can expose airlines – and other employers – to fraud and safety risks.
Continued fraud as aggravating factor
In his reasons, Wong identified as an aggravating factor the fact that Smadych continued to defraud insurers even while under investigation. “Even though [Smadych] would have known her fraudulent scheme was on the verge of being discovered, she continued her fraud … for another two and a half years,” he said, according to CBC.
Smadych is no longer practising as a dentist in Alberta, according to the College of Dental Surgeons of Alberta, but has expressed interest in practising in Australia, where her son is studying dentistry. In 2007, she was convicted of fraud over $5,000 in connection with a false return scheme at a Home Depot store, CBC notes.
According to the All About Family Dental website, Smadych was a general dentist in Russia beginning in 1993, before she moved to Calgary in 2002. She earned her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the University of Dalhousie in Nova Scotia.
Ottawa’s Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) began rolling out in December 2023. In May 2025, the federal government opened applications under the plan for eligible Canadians aged 18 to 64, the final group under the government’s plan.
Previously, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith informed former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the province plans to opt out of the program by 2026.
