MSU Still Billing Abuse Victim

As disgusting as this is, it really doesn't surprise me. MSU has stayed consistent with their head in the sand, "we didn't know" defense. I'm not a lawyer, but wouldn't waiving the bill before the trial is over be an admission of guilt basically?

Yes it's extremely tone deaf by them, but I would imagine it's tactical. However, articles like this are good to keep the pressure on MSU that no one is buying their excuses. Hopefully this young lady gets exponentially more in a settlement, not that it would heal everything.

Izzo is clarifying his statement:

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/michigan-state-universi…

“In all honesty, I did rip him during that press conference because of the hideous act and the strength of the survivors and the courage that they have gone through, but hoping there was no one else out there that did anything,” Izzo said. “I used the word ‘right guy’ meaning they got the right, I meant people, if there were other people involved.”

That’s when Smith began the following exchange with Izzo.

Smith: “So you didn’t mean to say ‘I hope the right person was convicted?’

Izzo: “No, no.”

Smith: “You meant to say you hope that everybody that had anything to do with this is caught and convicted.”

Izzo: “Right.”

Right now they are probably too focused on sorting out the turmoil in their administration. While the victims are more important of course, I'm sure they will take care of that when they've sorted everything else out. Although they may very well prove me wrong based on the way they've handled this situation thus far...

to anybody who had either (1) bought single-game tickets over the last few years, or (2) was a one-time season-ticket purchaser but no longer was.  PSU was asking them to consider purchasing season-tickets for the upcoming 2015 season.

Jerry Sandusky was in that database - so, sure enough, he was sent a letter.

While I'm guessing it's probably just a clerical error (hospital billing is extremely automated and there are countless transactions happening all at once), I do agree that this is one instance where this probably should've gone right to the top of the payroll department's priority list had they known about it for some time. I would be shocked if this had any kind of malicious intent behind it. 

I'll admit I didn't thoroughly read the article, but I'd be curious to find out exactly when did the powers-that-be discover that this girl was a victim of Nassar? If she's been a known victim for quite some time and they were still receiving bills, then yeah I'd have a real problem with it too. But if she is just coming forward now and we're all finding out just now that she's a victim, I think you'd have to sympathize a little bit with the payroll department here. Again, they're handling countless transactions every day. How would they have reasonably known what was happening to her? Keep in mind that sometimes it can take a couple of billing cycles for something to take effect. 

I am NOT belittling the victim or her situation in any way. And yes, she should stop getting billed immediately. But I'm just playing Devil's Advocate. 

but somewhere some lawyer/legal aide screwed up.  A top point in dealing with a legal issue is you don't have contact with a victim needlessly.  This is needless contact that is handing more bullets to the people shooting at you.  Someone didn't do their job on the legal teams.

Corporate red tape/bureaucracy. I assume e-mails trying to correct the problem are flying back and forth between cubicles situated next to each other.

Not to defend MSU here, but that's an automated billing service doing that.  I'm sure that will stop once it was brought up, but that's an administrative oversight (and an indictment of the overall shittiness of American medical system re: paperwork), not a sign that MSU is trying to abuse her even more.

Many have noted this was a billing error and an automated system.  While this is true I think it illustrates where MSU has been focused.  If the focus was on, "how do we support the victims" then the leaders of the University would have a group focused on this support which would have likely identified things such as not billing for Nasser's services or attempting to collect on previous bills from over a year ago.

The true focus is of course on how do we not get sued for millions of dollars and get fired.  

are almost certainly correct.  In that context, I can understand how people would say MSU shouldn't get raked over the coals for charging the victims for their appointments.

But here's why that explanation doesn't hold water.  Sure, the billing was probably automatic.  But you know how MSU could have found out that victims were being billed and cancelled the bills prior to having it come out through a 15 year old victim?  By talking to the victims.  To date, not a single victim has been interviewed by MSU.  Keep in mind, they hired outside counsel in what everyone thought was an independent investigation which, in the end, wasn't even reduced to paper so the university could avoid FOIA requests.  That outside counsel didn't speak to any of the victims.  Not one.

If they had bothered to speak to Ms. Miller, the 15 year old who is being billed, I imagine she would have brought that up with them and they could have responded appropriately.  They decided not to speak with her or anyone else so it is completely within bounds to rake MSU over the coals for billing a victim.

Lee Ann Miller is cold-blooded, and I mean that in the most positive way.  This young woman has more poise at 15 than most of us will have at 30.

I will join with StevenRJKass and others, though, and say that the repeated billing is probably not an MSU issue so much as a third-party biller chasing after accounts tagged "delinquent" in the billing system.

HOWEVAH, rather than leave MSU off the hook on Ms. Miller's testimony, let's hear from Ms. Miller directly:

"Are you listening, MSU? I'm 15 years old and I'm not afraid of you, nor will I ever be," Miller said. "At 15, I shouldn't know the inside of a courtroom, but I'm going to become real comfortable in one. So should you. ...I didn't choose this circumstance. Nassar made that choice for us -- your 20-year child-molesting employee. This is a burden at 15 I shouldn't have to bear. But believe me MSU, bear I will."

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/emma-ann-miller-confronts-larry-nassar-court/story?id=52528764

As I have read through the threads and posts on the Nassar debacle, and particularly this one with medical billing, something comes to mind.

I have seen institutions virtually paralyzed by the fear of litigation, and the fear of wrongly revealing information that is confidential. Legal counsel is sought in order to make sure you do nothing which would lead to lawsuits. The intersection of medical treatment, minors, and sports, along with HIPAA laws, is kind of a quagmire. It is pretty unique to see such public testimony, particularly from minors. Along with that, in at least the case of McKayla Maroney, there are challenges with NDA's.

My point is to say that while Nassar is fully culpable, and undoubtedly a few others, I don't know that there was a nefarious coverup, at least on the part of some administrators.

Part of my own job intersects with caring with children. This means there are always concerns with security, privacy, DCFS, charges of neglect and abuse, and the like. Most of the time, this is a good thing. On occasion, it is easy to be fearful of saying too much, or too little.

I would defer to those who are actually in school administration and the medical field and the law working with these areas to know what is right and what is wrong. In that sense, I really sympathize somewhat with what Izzo was trying to say:  beyond, obviously, Nassar, you would hope that those who are guilty of neglect, deceit, coverup, etc., would be held accountable and appropriately sanctioned / censured / reprimanded / punished.