MSU Still Billing Abuse Victim
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
the Chair and Vice-Chair of USA Gymastics resign, and accept responsibility.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:06 PM ^
MSU should actually be paying each victim for all of those years of negligence.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:06 PM ^
they will
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:50 PM ^
The payments will start soon and they will be costly. ...and deservedly so.
January 22nd, 2018 at 4:06 PM ^
And they will be paid by us, Michigan tax payers.
January 22nd, 2018 at 4:14 PM ^
Did some Google searching - the state of Michigan gave the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) $308 million last year. MSU received $278 million.
Source - http://www.senate.michigan.gov/sfa/Publications/HiEdApprops/HiEdApprops_MostRecent.pdf
So unless funding to MSU increases by the state significantly to cover (what in my opinion, will be suit losses that total $300-400 million), I doubt the state is going to backfill these losses. It's going to come out of their endowment fund. Which is unfortunate, but the money has to come from somewhere.
January 22nd, 2018 at 6:20 PM ^
I'm hoping staee has some insurance policies to cover malfeasance by school employees.
January 22nd, 2018 at 6:52 PM ^
Is zero tax payer dollars. It will come out of the athletic dept budget that is likely fully funded privately, like UM. Could have an impact on other sports though.
January 23rd, 2018 at 9:54 AM ^
It has been estimated.......that payments and legal fees will go north of one billion dollars.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:22 PM ^
This has to be so hard on Tom Izzo
January 22nd, 2018 at 3:51 PM ^
I never mentioned Izzo, so I'm unsure (actually, I am) why you replied to me.
January 22nd, 2018 at 6:22 PM ^
We can all read your mind, you were thinking about what a bad day tom will be having.
January 22nd, 2018 at 3:54 PM ^
What a tough week for him. But he's a fighter.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:07 PM ^
Allegedly US Air refused to issue frequent flyer miles credit to the accounts of those who perished in flight 427 (Pittsburgh crash in 1994) because they "didnt complete the final leg of their flight".
A friend & co-worker was a VP in customer service and was tasked with telling the families of those who perished they had died told me this a few years ago. It was one of the reasons (besides being given the job of telling people their loved ones just died) he quit and came to work with me.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:25 PM ^
One of my PSU friends, her Dad was a US Air pilot and flew that same airplane at one point in the days preceding the crash. (man, that was a ugly crash). Heard 2nd-hand through her that same story.
I've readh that Congress passed the "Federal Family Plan for Aviation Disasters Act" in 1996 as a direct response to US Air's rather ham-handed response to that crash. The October 1994 American Eagle regional jet that crashed in NW Indiana due to ice build-up on the wings - American didn't respond well to that crash either.
As for MSU --- I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one - billing is probably automated and the folk working in billings never made the connection. It should be fixed in a hurry.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:55 PM ^
I'm surprised that US Air didn't honor the miles but make them non-transferable. That would have been just as douchey.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:28 PM ^
As our ball coach would say, to compare one to the other you are ultimately minimizing one (or something like that). They are both awful situations.....somebody screwed up here and should have caught on in the billing department.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:07 PM ^
this keeps getting worse and worse for msu, that klages should be going to court next
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:07 PM ^
Automated system- but the fact that nobody went through the system to ensure that all Nasar billings were waived speaks volumes about the incompetence and lack of thought going into this catastrophic situation, even now.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:21 PM ^
The most likely explanation is that it never crossed anyone's mind to cancel all of those patient invoices.
January 22nd, 2018 at 3:11 PM ^
who forgot to run dontbillclientswhoweallowedtobesexuallyassaulted_137.exe
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:22 PM ^
I work for a large corporation so I understand how disconnected a large organization can be. It is also difficult to think of everything.
That said, I've also seen my same company be confronted with an issue and respond amazingly well. That only happens if there is commitment from the top levels of leadership to make it a priority and apply the neccessary resources.
Sadly, based on what we have seen so far, it appears MSU's leadership has yet to recognize and priortize this situation accordingly.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:52 PM ^
It looks like msu finally are getting around to fixing it.
MSU spokesman Jason Cody: "I of course do not have access to patient records, billing or otherwise. But this has been passed on to the people who handle that to address, and I can tell you that patients for former MSU physician Larry Nassar will not be billed."
— Kate Wells (@KateLouiseWells) January 22, 2018
January 22nd, 2018 at 3:10 PM ^
But a very poor look that a victim / survivor had to shame them into thinking about this in her impact statement.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:08 PM ^
Someone in the accounting dept should lose their job over this... absolutely disgraceful.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:08 PM ^
Just. Don't. Understand.
How the hell does this much abuse go on for this long and not a single voice gets through?
Oh, that's right. No one knew. I hope those girls literally OWN that wretched place by the time this is through.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:46 PM ^
"...No one knew..."
They knew, they just didn't "believe". The official sattement is that 'no MSU official believed it to be true'. This is what they're hanging thier hat on.
January 22nd, 2018 at 5:37 PM ^
Joe Pa knew.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:10 PM ^
On the one hand, hospital billing is incredibly automated, so certainly there is no intentional malice here.
On the other hand, JESUS H. CHRIST ON A POPSICLE STICK make sure you are NOT STILL billing a person who was SEXUALLY ASSAULTED IN YOUR FUCKING HOSPITAL
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:42 PM ^
One of the challenges in a bureaucracy is dealing with unexpected stuff like this. In this case, a low level Good Samaritan who realized such issues could exist could be credibly accused of a HIPAA violation for snooping through an account to see if charges were being billed. A higher-up that could make the call to forgive such a charge would almost certainly not be aware that it existed.
This testimony is probably the first time people on the business office side of things were made aware of this issue.
Keep in mind that even the patients aren't necessarily aware of billing status as bills go to insurance and the records mailed to patients are quickly disregarded, since copays have already been paid. I once discovered a serious billing error in a mental health office when we had two patients with similar names and charges were being incorrectly posted to the wrong patient's account. It took two years to discover the problem in part because the wrong patient's insurance was covering the costs. Unwinding all of that manually was a chore.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:51 PM ^
I am absolutely, positively NOT an expert in this area, but how would saying to an admin, "Do NOT bill these X accounts - or ANY account related to Larry Nasser - for the time being" be a HIPAA violation?
January 22nd, 2018 at 3:07 PM ^
A manager saying it somwhere would not be a violation. Some employee snooping thorugh just to see if there are any current billings for him, would be. You cannot snoop through accounts. You cannot look at them unless you have specific need to do so. HIPAA is quite anal in that area...
January 22nd, 2018 at 3:11 PM ^
Two different situations here:
1. Identifying which accounts not to bill. That can be tricky as the relevant people may be difficult to identify. Or they were before, anyway. But you would probably have to announce that you were doing this at this point and set up a way to verify which patients to halt bills for. In this case you could just forgive balances without actually changing charges, but the criteria for balance forgiveness would be difficult to implement.
2. Cancelling charges for all Nasser activity is possible, though depending upon the billing system it may not be easy to identify which charges are his (they are typically entered based upon the type of service). It's doable but tricky--you need to decide which charges to bill and not to bill for all cases, since some charges may be independent of Nassar. And you have to decide how far back to go, since MSU has already received payment for many of these events. It's unclear to me if this has an effect on insurance contracts, another complication.
So you need a corporate policy that gives the date range and definition of which charges to reverse. Then you assign someone from billing to go into each account and wipe them out. If refunds must be issued, that's a new step.
It's liable to get expensive, but then, things are likely to get REALLY expensive anyway.
As they should.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:51 PM ^
This is correct. But, at some point, you would hope that a staff meeting would have revealed this. I mean, firing Nassar was pretty big news - you would think it was mentioned in some staff meeting where a finance guy was also in attendance. You would think the general discussion would include the part that crazy clown guy mentioned - 'hey, maybe we should make sure we're not billing anyone that he abused?'...
January 22nd, 2018 at 5:47 PM ^
The one thing you can be promised on MGoBlog is that any discussion about anything remotely medical will eventually lead to a discussion of HIPAA and what is or is not a violation.
January 22nd, 2018 at 7:12 PM ^
(at least in large numbers) is people speaking ignorantly about HIPPA (pains me to even write it that way).
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:09 PM ^
Just a heads up. The link worked and then sent me to a spam/virus looking page before my laptop closed it.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:16 PM ^
Stop whining, I mean it!
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:19 PM ^
Anybody want a peanut?
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:24 PM ^
You both are just...inconceivable
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:09 PM ^
Flaming hot take: this is a non-story.
Student goes and uses service (beyond what is covered in tuition).
Student is billed accordingly.
Debate amongst yourselves if you feel that MSU should *refund* the student due to MSU's involvement/negligence in this particular situation.
But the initial act of billing is (again, debate amongst yourselves the integrity therein) just how such healthcare systems work.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:21 PM ^
This is obviously a clerical error, so I don't think this really reflects that much on whether MSU "cares" about the entire situation or not. I am quite certain they would not be billing her if they had noticed it.
That being said, you cannot be serious with your take. Student "uses service above and beyong what is covered in tuition." "Service?" If you haven't caught on yet, these girls were essentially being delivered to Nassar so he could abuse them. Your take on this is absolutely ridiculous.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:22 PM ^
If this had been *any other situation* but Nassar, this would be run of the mill "yup, they used service X number of times when they were allowed to use it Y". Shockingly, people are asked to pay the difference.
That's my point.
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:24 PM ^
man, what in THE HELL is your point?
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:59 PM ^
Obviously
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:21 PM ^
Scorching Hottest Fucking Take
Airline's plane crashes, killing a man, and his three kids.
Six months later, Airline automatically contacts the widow to tell her she has lost all her frequent flier miles for not using them fast enough.
This was done automatically. No malice intended.
AIRLINE WOULD STILL BE ABSOLUTELY SLAUGHTERED FOR THIS OVERSIGHT IN THE MEDIA AND BY THEIR CUSTOMERS, AND RIGHTLY SO...
January 22nd, 2018 at 2:57 PM ^
Would you fly in a plane owned by that company? Most people won't return to a place where they got food poisoning. No way you fly with them.
January 22nd, 2018 at 3:42 PM ^
Right, and your point is.....????
January 22nd, 2018 at 8:47 PM ^
That's what I was wondering about your post.