By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-18 23:32:04 | Updated at 2026-09-19 00:18:48
1 hour ago
Attorney General Todd Blanche and Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, speak during Concerned Women for America annual summit in Washington on Sept. 18, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times
WASHINGTON—The Department of Justice announced on Sep. 18 that it has secured agreements with hospital systems in New York and Pennsylvania to end transgender treatments for minors.
New York University Langone Health and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have agreed to halt such treatments and will pay penalties of $8.5 million and $970,000, respectively.
The hospitals were under investigation as part of a larger initiative—ordered by President Donald Trump—to probe healthcare systems for alleged violations of fraud and consumer laws related to gender interventions for minors, a statement by the DOJ said.
Friday’s agreement resolved those investigations, the DOJ said, adding that both entities had taken “significant steps entitling them to credit for cooperation” with the investigations, and had “remained cooperative and solutions-driven.”
The two entities denied any wrongdoing.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a social media post announcing the agreements: “Hospitals that target children in these practices, and then fraudulently obtain payments for the procedures, will be held accountable.”
Before the DOJ statement was made public, Blanche teased the announcement on Friday morning at a Concerned Women of America summit in Washington.
“It wasn’t easy to prosecute. You know, the team of lawyers that worked at DOJ filing lawsuits, working with the institutions, getting the lawyers, fighting them, going to court, losing in court, winning in court, and along the way, everybody’s saying, ‘What’s going on? You guys are not moving fast enough.’”
He told the gathering of evangelical Christian women, which pushes for legislation to end abortion and male participation in female sports, that such suits are meant to bring “lasting change.”
Friday’s announcement comes on the heels of similar DOJ settlements with New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital system, Texas Children’s Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and Connecticut Children’s Hospital.
Around 40 hospital systems representing “thousands of institutions” have agreed to halt pediatric gender care for at least 10 years or longer, Blanche said.
It also follows upon the federal government’s push to investigate healthcare providers for fraudulent billing practices through the misuse of diagnosis codes, violating the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by using hormones to effect gender changes, and the False Claims Act by promising such procedures can end gender dysphoria.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a report on Aug. 13 alleging that hospitals were purposely misdiagnosing patients on insurance forms to ensure reimbursement.
For example, between 2015 and 2025, insurers were billed nearly $11 million for puberty blockers prescribed to kids aged 13 to 17 who had been diagnosed with “precocious puberty,” the report said.
The report, entitled “Wolves in White Coats,” noted that patients in that age group cannot have precocious—or early—puberty, because that is the normal age when puberty begins.
Similar miscoding was allegedly used for gender surgeries.
“How do you do a mastectomy, but then bill an insurance company and not raise any red flags? ... You bill it as breast reduction instead of a mastectomy,” said Dr. Eithan Haim, an author of the report.
