Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n Texas initially sued Lau and Cooper for prescribing hormone therapy to dozens of minors in violation of a 2023 state law, and both have denied wrongdoing. Lau surrenderedher Texas medical license, opens new tab<\/a> in October after she moved her practice to Oregon.<\/p>\n Now, the state claims that the doctors also falsified records, altered diagnosis codes and submitted deceptive billing information to Medicaid in order to conceal the illegal treatments. If found liable for fraud, the doctors could be ordered to pay treble damages, or three times the amount of improper Medicaid reimbursements, along with thousands of dollars in fines.<\/p>\n “Under my watch, the transgender activists using their positions in the medical field to illegally \u2018transition\u2019 children will face the full force of the law,” Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement.<\/p>\n The amended petitions were filed in state court in Collin County, Texas, on December 5.<\/p>\n Lawyers for Cooper, whose case is scheduled to go to trial in May, and Lau did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n The petitions are the latest escalation of a crackdown on providers of gender-affirming care for transgender youth by Republican-led states and President Donald Trump’s administration. Conservative lawmakers in 25 states have in recent years adopted bans on various forms of gender-affirming care for adolescents. The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld one such ban<\/a> in Tennessee, delivering a major setback for transgender rights advocates.<\/p>\n Medical associations, noting that gender dysphoria is associated with higher rates of suicide, have said gender-affirming care can be life-saving, and that long-term studies show its effectiveness.<\/p>\n Trump in a January executive order<\/a> directed prosecutors to prioritize investigations involving transgender youth care, and the U.S. Justice Department earlier this year said it had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in performing gender-affirming procedures on children.Sixteen Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in August<\/a> claiming the Trump administration had violated the U.S. Constitution by trampling on states’ ability to regulate medicine. The administration moved to dismiss that case last month.<\/p>\n The cases are Texas v. Lau and Texas v. Cooper, in the District Court of Collin County, Texas, Nos. 493-07676-2024 and 493-08026-2024.<\/p>\n For Lau: Alexander Wolf and others from Steptoe; Nicole LeBoeuf and Amy Ooi of LeBoeuf Law<\/p>\n For Cooper: Avi Moshenberg of Lawson & Moshenberg<\/p>\n For the state: Johnathan Stone, Robert Farquharson and others from the Texas Attorney General’s office<\/p>\n Read more:<\/p>\n US states sue over Trump’s targeting of providers of transgender youth medical care<\/a>US Justice Department directs investigations over gender-affirming care<\/a>Trump orders end to federal support for transgender healthcare for minors<\/a>US Supreme Court upholds Tennessee law banning youth transgender care<\/a><\/p>\n Reporting by Daniel WIessner in Albany, New York<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a> Dan Wiessner (@danwiessner) reports on labor and employment and immigration law, including litigation and policy making. He can be reached at daniel.wiessner@thomsonreuters.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dec 10 (Reuters) – Texas has accused two doctors of fraudulently billing Medicaid for gender-affirming treatment they provided…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5932,7358,7359,7382,7376,36235,7383,18196,40315,7377,7378,15189,24233,27525,5920,19556,18180,40311,18181,40312,7363,5947,5303,40313,30707,5933,7381,7369,7353,36234,18193,40314,7371,7370,7365,30701,5948,40310,18178,28619,30702,15192,27,29,28,23693,18192,5935,393,5934],"class_list":["post-83584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-amers","tag-civ","tag-clj","tag-destlit","tag-destociv","tag-destoemp","tag-destogov","tag-destohlt","tag-destoinn","tag-destolit","tag-destopub","tag-dli","tag-fin","tag-fins","tag-gen","tag-govact","tag-hea","tag-heains","tag-heca","tag-insr","tag-judic","tag-legal","tag-lgbt","tag-lins","tag-medreg","tag-namer","tag-nrlinogov","tag-nrlpaociv","tag-nrlpaoconl","tag-nrlpaoemp","tag-nrlpaohlt","tag-nrlpaoinn","tag-nrlpaolit","tag-nrlpaopub","tag-pol","tag-regs","tag-reuters-legal","tag-rhpihealth-insurance","tag-rhpilawsuits","tag-rhpiregulatory","tag-rsbiregulatory-oversight","tag-soci","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-topicpharma-healthcare-business-health","tag-topicpharma-healthcare-policy-regulation","tag-topicworld-us-texas","tag-us","tag-usatx"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Daniel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/arc-authors\/reuters\/bdb4e34b-8122-4c57-94e1-851c4d54423b.png\")
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