NYU Langone Will Pay $8.5 Million and UPMC $950,000 to Settle a Justice Department Probe Into How They Billed for Transgender Care for Minors, and Both Agreed to Stop Providing It. Neither Admits Wrongdoing. Todd Blanche Says DOJ Is 'Fighting to Protect Our Nation's Children.'

The Justice Department announced Friday that two of the country's largest health systems, NYU Langone Hospitals in New York and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, have agreed to pay a combined $9.5 million and stop providing gender-related medical treatment to patients under 18 to resolve federal investigations into how they billed for that care. NYU Langone will pay $8.5 million and UPMC $950,000. Under the agreements, both systems will cease administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and performing surgical procedures on minors, while continuing pediatric mental health programs and care for adult patients.

The investigations centered on billing, not medicine. Prosecutors alleged that providers at the two systems routinely submitted claims under false diagnosis codes to obtain reimbursement from private insurers and government-sponsored health plans, potentially violating the False Claims Act, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and other federal health care laws. The settlements resolve those inquiries without any court finding. As the department's own announcement states, "The claims resolved by the United States in these agreements are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability. NYU and UPMC have expressly denied all allegations." The deals also protect patient and provider confidentiality from grand jury subpoenas, a term hospitals had pushed for as the probes widened.

"The Department of Justice is fighting to protect our nation's children and working tirelessly to reach agreements with hospitals to end so-called 'gender affirming care' for minors," Attorney General Todd Blanche said. Brett Shumate, the assistant attorney general who leads the Civil Division, warned that the campaign is not finished: "Our efforts and investigations into other providers are ongoing. Those that have broken the law and not resolved their potential liability will be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible."

For NYU Langone, the agreement formalizes a decision already made. The hospital discontinued its program for transgender youth in February, citing the "current regulatory environment," months before the settlement. The department has now reached comparable agreements with Mount Sinai Health System, Texas Children's Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Connecticut Children's Hospital, and last month the administration finalized a rule barring federal health programs from paying for such care for minors, with hormone coverage under Medicaid and CHIP phasing out by April 2027.

The settlements are the latest step in a broader effort by President Donald Trump and his administration to end gender-affirming medical treatment for children, an effort pursued through executive orders, funding rules and now federal fraud investigations. Major medical and mental health organizations in the United States have long maintained that such care, delivered under established guidelines, reduces depression and suicide risk among transgender youth. That disagreement was never adjudicated here. What the department got instead was two large hospital systems paying to end the inquiry, denying they did anything wrong and agreeing to stop anyway.