It's time to investigate Planned Parenthood for 'gender-affirming' fraud

The U.S. Department of Justice, the Texas Attorney General, and the Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) in Houston reached a 'landmark resolution’ over the hospital’s past provision of ‘transgender care’ that will award the state $10 million. The agreement is the result of a probe that found TCH overbilled state Medicaid for 'gender-affirming care' for minors.

The hospital, which must now also build the nation’s first ‘detransition clinic,' is one of several clinics recently facing scrutiny over its sex-rejecting practices imposed on minors, and so far ranks second in settlement amounts reached.

Meanwhile, the nation’s self-proclaimed leader in ‘gender-affirming care,’ Planned Parenthood, continues to evade interrogation. 

Key Takeaways:

• Texas Children's Hospital reached an agreement with the US DOJ and will pay the state $10 million for overbilling for 'gender-affirming care' of minors.

• TCH must also build a 'detransition clinic.'

• Allegations have been made that Planned Parenthood participates in similar fraudulent activity and deserves to be investigated.

• Planned Parenthood affiliates use off-label drugs for an unverifiable psychiatric condition, which experts say is carried out under the false premise of aligning biological bodies with subjective feelings.

• Dr. Miriam Grossman accused Planned Parenthood of "fraud and deceptive practice" via presenting unproven or “demonstrably false” claims as facts to mislead consumers.

The Details: 

On Friday, May 15, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the “first resolution secured under the Department’s ongoing national investigation into violations of federal law in connection with the provision of sex-rejecting procedures on minors (often euphemistically called 'gender-affirming care').”  

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs further stated: 

Under the terms of the agreements, which the Department of Justice reached in coordination with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, TCH will pay $10 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false billings to public and private payors to secure insurance coverage for pediatric sex-rejecting procedures. The Department alleges this conduct violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act, and federal fraud and conspiracy laws.

The ‘landmark settlement’ was reached with no admission of guilt on the part of TCH, according to the DOJ. TCH said it made “the difficult decision to settle with the Texas Attorney General and the Department of Justice,” which it claimed “clos[ed] a chapter that has been wrought with falsehoods and distractions.” 

“To be clear – we are settling to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation. This settlement will allow us to redirect those precious resources to focus on the life-saving care and groundbreaking discoveries of our exceptional clinicians and scientists,” TCH stated.

The DOJ further reported that TCH “has committed to establishing the first-of-its-kind clinic dedicated to restorative care for detransitioners.”

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward stated, “Today’s resolution furthers that commitment and puts providers of so-called ‘gender affirming care’ on notice that this Department will vigorously enforce federal law where children are put at risk.”

The Backstory:

Investigations into TCH began in 2023 after legislators passed Senate Bill 14, which prohibited the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors for the purpose of rejecting biological sex.

In 2023, Dr. Eithan Haim blew the whistle on TCH, which he claimed was continuing its “gender affirming care” of minors after the hospital had claimed to have stopped such services.

Shortly after news broke of the settlement, Haim stated on X, “To appreciate the scale of the Texas AG settlement with TCH consider that the $10M Medicaid fraud settlement tied to its gender clinic makes it the 2nd largest healthcare fraud settlement involving a children’s hospital in U.S. history.”  

Haim further noted: 

"And I would argue the largest by far in practical terms. Why? Because the alleged fraud came from a niche clinic treating a condition where only ~0.05–0.1% of children undergo medicalization.

A question worth asking is how does such a tiny clinic generate $10M in Medicaid fraud claims, especially when those claims exclude private insurance entirely?

The disparity between patient volume and billing volume raises an another question: how could so few physicians submit so many allegedly fraudulent claims unless the improper billing practices were the standard practice in the clinic and how was this not identified the leadership earlier?" 

Responding to Haim, San Francisco attorney and mother of a former trans-identified child, Erin Friday, stated: 

"Another point is that this is a settlement. The hospital that do[es] not proffer - voluntarily admit to their fraudulent billing and settle will be looking at 20-fold in damages. 

Hospitals should be lining up to get a deal for their misdeeds."

Could Planned Parenthood affiliates be planning to do the same? 

Zoom Out:

Friday explained that “cross-sex hormones” and “puberty blockers” are "being handed out as [if they are] candy" as part of the billion-dollar industry. She added, “Planned Parenthood is also reaping the benefits of this market. This is why they want to shut us up.” 

Last year, a Live Action undercover investigation exposed Planned Parenthood’s willingness to prescribe minors sex-rejecting hormones. During a livestream hosted by Live Action, president and founder Lila Rose stated: 

"As many of you know from Live Action’s investigative report, we exposed Planned Parenthood as not just the largest abortion provider but also the leading promoter of cross-sex hormones to minors, including 16-year-olds. Undercover footage shows that they prescribe life-altering hormones without even a mental health consultation — sometimes even on the same day."  

During the livestream, Dr. Haim stated:

"In your investigation, you found a 16-year-old girl got testosterone via telehealth. That’s a Schedule III drug, like ketamine. You can’t just hand that out without evaluation.

That’s a pill mill. But this is a federally funded pill mill.

If I did that, I’d go to prison. What you uncovered is a crime. This is criminal behavior.

Not only should Planned Parenthood be defunded—they should be prosecuted."

Live Action News also reported on the harrowing story of Elle Palmer, a female who testified that Planned Parenthood prescribed her cross-sex hormones when she was a minor. In a Connecticut Judiciary Committee hearing, Palmer stated: 

"Ten years ago when I was 15, I came out to my parents as a transgender boy. One year later, I was prescribed testosterone at Planned Parenthood. I was 16. I told the doctor about my traumatic female puberty with debilitating painful periods, severe suicidal thoughts, and self-harm, and anxiety so bad that I dropped out of school. I told him that I went to a children’s mental hospital three times before I was 14…Transition was supposed to be the cure."

However, when Palmer returned to Planned Parenthood at 19, wishing to detransition, she was told no assistance was available.

“I told them I was female to male but I wanted to go back to female. They didn’t know what to do…Planned Parenthood could easily put a teenage girl on testosterone, but no one in the entire state knew how to treat a woman who just wanted her female body back,” Palmer testified. 

Planned Parenthood’s Fraudulent Activity

The DOJ’s statement regarding the TCH explains that the settlement amount of $10 million awarded to the state was set to “resolve allegations that it [the children’s hospital] submitted false billings to public and private payors to secure insurance coverage for pediatric sex-rejecting procedures." 

Notably, similar questions were raised regarding a Planned Parenthood affiliate’s admission of insurance billing codes for its ‘gender-affirming treatments.’

During the FTC-hosted workshop, psychiatrist and author Dr. Miriam Grossman detailed how deceptive language and potentially fraudulent use of medical codes are used by Planned Parenthood and others to receive financial reimbursement for ‘gender-affirming care.’ 

Dr. Grossman explained that the International Classification of Diseases lists thousands of various diagnostic medical codes used for endocrine diagnosis, ranging from coding for type 1 diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome (now known as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, PMOS), and hyperthyroidism, with codes ranging from E00 to E89.

Grossman pointed to Planned Parenthood’s Southeastern Pennsylvania affiliate, which purports to use codes E34.9 (endocrine disorder, unspecified) and “occasionally” F64.9 (gender identity disorder, unspecified) “to meet the needs of most insurance companies and patients.”

Providing several examples of medical documents obtained by de-transitioners, Grossman explained that, despite the common use of E34.9 and other seemingly misapplied codes, in each of the cases she evaluated, medical documents showed young, “physically healthy people” with only psychiatric diagnoses. 

Endocrinologist Dr. Michael Laidlaw, also a speaker during the FTC workshop, further emphasized that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved any drugs to treat gender dysphoria — a condition Laidlaw states is commonly associated with GAC ‘treatments.’

Laidlaw described gender dysphoria as a “legitimate psychological diagnosis… with an extreme discomfort with one’s [biological] sex and perceived gender leading to significant distress and impairment (emphasis added).”  

Yet, GAC providers like Planned Parenthood affiliates use off-label drugs for an unverifiable psychiatric condition, which Laidlaw and others at the workshop suggested are done under the false premise of aligning biological bodies with subjective feelings — a scientifically impossible feat.

Dr. Grossman echoed these concerns, accusing Planned Parenthood and similar providers of "fraud and deceptive practice" by presenting unproven or “demonstrably false” claims as facts to mislead consumers.

This raises a few questions regarding one of the leading providers of GAC — Planned Parenthood:  

• Could these codes, admittedly used by Planned Parenthood’s affiliate, also be considered ‘false billings’ for “public and private payors to secure insurance coverage” as alleged in the TCH settlement? How many other affiliates use the same or similar codes for their GAC?  

• What exactly are all of the services and demographic breakdowns included in so many of Planned Parenthood's affiliates' reports under the GAC banner? And of those, how much, if any, are paid for or reimbursed with taxpayer funds? 

Despite ongoing investigations and involvement by the DOJ and FTC into multiple organizations such as the World Health Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Endocrine Society, and several hospitals and clinics across the country…one of the nation's largest self-proclaimed leaders in sex-rejecting ‘gender affirming care’ providers, Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, seemingly continues to evade scrutiny.

Will Planned Parenthood also be investigated?

The commonly used euphemism, “gender-affirming care (GAC),” has broadly used implications, including social, legal, and medical interventions — all of which Planned Parenthood professes to either directly provide or actively assist clients in finding service providers or resources for.

The scope of social, legal, and medical interventions is wide and vague; however, the terms commonly used include: 

• Social: May mean everything from providing ‘gender affirming sex ed,’ which includes indoctrination and application of falsely applied use of ‘gender-affirming’ pronouns; education on and application of “chest binding” (physically binding a female’s breast for the purpose of appearing more “masculine”) and “tucking” (physically compressing male genitalia for the purpose of appearing more “feminine”); and connecting clients with local Planned Parenthood ‘grooming centers’ and other sex-rejecting resources and groups.

• Medical: May include puberty blockers (which include possible use of birth control for minors (as Live Action News reported), and off-label use of sex hormones, i.e., ‘cross-sex’ hormones, prescribing females testosterone, prescribing males progesterone/estrogen. This also can include providing referrals to outside clinics for body-altering surgeries for the purpose of manufacturing the appearance of the opposite sex. 

• Legal: May include, but not limited to, education on and referrals to ‘legal services’ that can help the person change his/her name on legal documents.  

Although Planned Parenthood has received taxpayer funds through various means, ranging from its ‘sex ed’ programs to Medicaid dollars, it does not provide any specific breakdowns of its "gender-affirming care services."

And yet, many abortion giant affiliates boast of their sharp increase in GAC services.

In the state of Washington, Planned Parenthood has two major affiliates — Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky (PPGNHAIK) in western Washington and Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho (PPGWNI) in the central and eastern regions. In Washington state, there are few restrictions on GAC “treatments” for “two spirit, transgender, nonbinary, and other gender diverse individuals,” regardless of age.

In fact, with few exceptions, clinics like Planned Parenthood, shelters, and school staff are mostly “barred” from sharing most information without permission from the minor, with a Shield Law in place to protect abortion and GAC providers.    

Notably, the PPGNHAIK 2025 report states that 48% of its “patients are uninsured or insured through Medicaid,” yet its reporting remains vague. For example, these Planned Parenthood affiliates label GAC as “appointments,” or “visits” without any details of what the appointments or visits entail, nor any specific demographics such as the ages of the GAC patients.

Recent reports by these two Planned Parenthood affiliates reveal: 

• PPGNHAIK — which provides an extensive list of “GAC resources” including for minors — reported that its GAC appointments increased over 80% from 2024 (13,432 appointments) to 2025 (24,295 appointments).

• PPGWNI — reported an over 50% increase in its GAC visits from 2024 (3,355 GAC visits) to 2025 (5,059 GAC visits). 

The Bottom Line:

Surely, executive and legislative members should reasonably conclude that Planned Parenthood — which has explicitly expressed targeting minors and vulnerable populations and said ‘transgender care’ and abortion go ‘hand in hand’ — deserves an investigative eye. Shouldn't they?