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The Cleveland Clinic pledged $2 million in care for people who detransition after receiving gender-affirming care as minors under a settlement with the Department of Justice (DOJ), becoming the second major health system to cut a deal with the Trump administration.
Under the deal, which the DOJ announced Friday, Cleveland Clinic will offer detransition services to all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.
The system will be required to publicize those services with a dedicated website, phone number, care coordinator and direct outreach to three entities that provide non-medical services to people who want seeking detransition.
By committing dollars to detransition care, the Cleveland Clinic is helping to “provide essential medical care for individuals living with the harmful consequences of such misguided medical interventions performed on them as children and adolescents,” DOJ said in a statement.
According to a copy of the settlement, detransition services include medical care for hormonal balancing, surgical revision and reconstruction, fertility restoration, psychological support (including grief counseling), and insurance coordination for individuals seeking detransition.
Transgender advocates slammed the settlement as capitulation.
“Cleveland Clinic, once a highly respected medical institution, continues to show that maintaining medical integrity is no longer their priority by jumping to the front of the line to comply not with science and medicine, but with cruelty and anti-trans hate,” Dara Adkison, executive director of TransOhio said in a statement to The Hill.
“Detransition services were always a part of gender affirming care; there continues to be no increased need, and it is a bigoted, sad performative farce the Clinic is choosing to promote,” Adkison said.
The deal marks the second major health system to settle fraudulent billing allegations regarding gender-affirming care. DOJ last month settled with Texas Children’s Hospital, which agreed to pay $10 million and establish the nation’s first “detransition clinic.”
The agreement with the Cleveland Clinic was not nearly that expensive.
The settlement calls for just over $300,000 paid to both the U.S. and the state of Ohio to resolve allegations regarding falsely billing insurance to secure coverage for gender-affirming procedures on minors.
Federal and state officials alleged Cleveland Clinic used diagnosis codes for unspecified endocrine disorders instead of codes they contend more accurately reflected the reasons for the services being provided.
Cleveland Clinic also pledged a 20-year commitment to not perform or offer gender-affirming care — which includes the administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones — for minors.
However, all hospitals in Ohio are already banned from providing gender-affirming care to minors under state law. The Hill has reached out to Cleveland Clinic for comment.
“The Department of Justice is steadfastly committed to protecting America’s children,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement. “Just as the resolution with Texas Children’s, today’s resolution with Cleveland Clinic furthers that commitment and puts these providers on notice that this Department will vigorously enforce federal law where children are put at risk.”
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