The Texas attorney general has added health care fraud claims to his lawsuits against two Dallas doctors who allegedly provided illegal gender-affirming care to minors.
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office announced Wednesday morning that the office added Texas Health Care Program Fraud Prevention Act claims against both doctors. The suit accuses the doctors of intentionally falsifying medical and billing records to conceal their provision of gender-affirming care.
As part of the new claims, the attorney general’s office wrote in a statement that is it is “seeking three times the amount of improperly paid Medicaid funds and substantial civil penalties for each unlawful act to hold the physicians accountable to Texas law and ensure that Texas is repaid for the evil performed by the doctors.”
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The claims were added on to the existing lawsuits that the attorney general filed last fall against Dr. May Lau and Dr. M. Brett Cooper. Each of the doctor’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday morning.
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Around the same time that Paxton initially sued the two Dallas doctors in 2024, he also filed a similar lawsuit against an El Paso doctor. The attorney general’s office, however, dropped that lawsuit earlier this year, saying “no legal violations were found.”
The lawsuits against Lau and Cooper focus on medical care the doctors provided in the Dallas area, while they were affiliated with UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center Dallas.
The attorney general’s suits allege the doctors violated a Texas law that bans medical providers from providing gender-affirming care to minors. When Texas’ ban was implemented in September 2023, physicians were allowed to provide wean-off care to patients already in treatment.
The doctors, the attorney general’s office alleges, illegally provided care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minor patients.
In the lawsuits against all three doctors, the attorney general’s office described the physicians as activists who intentionally or forcibly harmed children. In contrast, LGBTQ and civil rights organizations have said it is the ban on gender-affirming care that is harmful to young trans people.
Medical organizations have criticized such bans for interfering in patient-physician relationships, and preventing doctors and families from making their own decisions on age-appropriate care.
In the time since the initial lawsuit against her, Lau has surrendered her Texas medical license and moved her practice to the state of Oregon.
The suits against both Lau and Cooper are ongoing.