Last Friday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the U.S. Department of Justice announced an unusual settlement agreement with Texas Children's Hospital ending the hospital's gender transition services. AG Paxton's press release (full text) describing the settlement says in part:
... [The settlement agreement] compels the creation of the country’s first-ever Detransition Clinic; requires the hospital to pay $10 million for billing Texas Medicaid for unallowable and illegal ‘gender-transition’ interventions, including by using false diagnosis codes; and compels the termination and revocation of privileges of multiple physicians....
Under the terms of this landmark agreement, Texas Children’s will establish the first-ever multidisciplinary clinic designed to provide medical care to patients who were subjected to “gender-transition” procedures. This Detransition Clinic will help patients reverse the damage caused by ideologically-motivated physicians who harmed patients by performing dangerous medical interventions for the purpose of “transitioning” them. For the first five years, all services provided through the Detransition Clinic will be funded by Texas Children’s and be free of charge to patients.
As part of the settlement, Texas Children’s has also agreed to fire, permanently and irrevocably terminate all existing privileges, and never again hire or credential five woke doctors who performed harmful medical interventions on Texans.As part of the settlement, Texas Children’s agrees not to provide “gender-transition” services; will implement a host of compliance and ethics measures.
The U.S. Justice Department also issued a press release saying that the settlement resolves federal claims that Texas Children's violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act, and federal fraud and conspiracy laws. It noted that "At all times during the investigation, TCH remained cooperative, proactive, and solution-driven..."
Houston Public Media reports on the settlement and quotes Texas Childrens' as saying in part:
Today, we made the difficult decision to settle with the Texas Attorney General and the Department of Justice, closing 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.
