Calgary dentist guilty of decade-long insurance fraud handed 3-year sentence

Despite an eleventh hour attempt to secure at least a few more weeks of freedom, a Calgary dentist was handed a three-year prison sentence for a decade-long insurance billing fraud. 

Last year, Alena Smadych pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000 and admitted to bilking five insurance companies out of nearly $700,000. 

Before Justice Gord Wong delivered his sentencing decision on Thursday, defence lawyer Alain Hepner presented the court with two letters from his client’s doctors, asking the court to adjourn the matter as his client is suffering from back pain that is “getting worse.”

“I am asking the court to allow me to investigate these matters on her behalf,” said Hepner. “If you send her into custody I don’t know what she’s going to do.”

Prosecutor Greg Whiteside opposed the defence's application, pointing out that the letters were dated Nov. 3, 2025, and that the doctors had noted Smadych declined injection-based treatment and surgical options, opting to treat her pain with yoga and stretching instead.

“A number of months have passed,” said Whiteside. “She declined injections at the time as pain wasn’t significant and was improving naturally.”

Wong agreed and denied the application for an adjournment.

“If she’s got these issues … I’m quite satisfied that the prison system will be able to handle the situation,” said Wong.

Whiteside had proposed a two- to three-year sentence, while Hepner asked Wong to consider a two-year conditional sentence order, meaning Smadych would be allowed to serve her sentence at home, under conditions.

Smadych, 55, used to own All About Family Dental on Elbow Drive, which she sold last year for $3.5 million. 

The clinic was once the highest billing clinic in Canada for root canals.

In an agreed statement of facts filed as part of her guilty plea, Smadych admitted to filing more than $684,000 in falsified billings between 2013 and 2023. 

The investigation began in 2021 after Sun Life identified "strange billing practices," according to the agreed statement of facts, and uncovered practices like direct billing for repeat root canals and fillings.

The judge pointed out that an aggravating factor in her crimes was the fact that Smadych continued to defraud insurance companies while she was under investigation.