WTAS: HHS Releases Report Exposing Fraudulent Insurance Coding For Sex-rejecting Procedures On Minors

WASHINGTON, D.C. — August 18, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Thursday released a report Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of “Gender Medicine,” a commissioned report examining insurance coding practices, perverse financial incentives, and the provision of sex-rejecting procedures for minors. Drawing on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Guidance, Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations, peer-reviewed scientific literature, hospital records, whistleblower testimony, nationwide insurance claims analyses, and interviews with patients and parents, the report presents HHS’ findings and recommendations about the industry pushing and profiting off so-called “gender medicine.” A shortform documentary illustrating the report’s findings and highlighting the stories of victims of predatory gender medical practices was also released in conjunction with the report.

Here is how government officials, medical professionals, advocates, the media, and others are responding:

Government Officials
Medical Professionals & Academics 
Advocates & Organizations
Influencers & Members of the Media
Headlines

Government Officials:

• Vice President JD Vance via X: “For years now, some hospitals and healthcare providers have been subjecting children to horrific, experimental treatments in service of radical gender ideologies. Today, thanks to the Wolves in White Coats report released by @HHSGov, we know why: profit. It turns out that convincing vulnerable children to reject their gender can create patients for life, earning hospitals tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue per child. The report contains deeply disturbing allegations, and I encourage every American and every parent, to read it.  More than just pushing these procedures on kids, hospitals and providers may have been defrauding Medicaid and private insurers by using misleading or fraudulent billing codes to get insurance to cover the costs.”
• Sen. Tommy Tuberville: “Anyone who pushes this MUTILATION on children should be LOCKED UP. Thank you, @SecKennedy, for pulling back the curtains and ending this CHILD ABUSE.”
• Sen. Marsha Blackburn via X: “It is unconscionable that far-left doctors mutilated vulnerable children to pad their pockets…”
• Sen. Rick Scott via X: “Democrats will stop at nothing to push their radical, trans agenda, even if it means allowing hospitals to take advantage and profit off the mutilation of children through THOUSANDS of courses of hormones and puberty blockers. This has to STOP. Thank you @SecKennedy for bringing this abuse of minors to light.”
• Rep. Mark Alford: “WOLVES IN WHITE COATS? Why are some doctors profiting from the fraud of so called ‘gender medicine’?! Families deserve truth. Children deserve to be protected. Thank you to @VP Vance for sending this right over to DOJ. Now ALL of the facts need to come out.”
• Rep. Addison McDowell via X: “Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Putting vulnerable children on a path toward lifelong, irreversible medical procedures is the exact opposite. This ‘gender affirming’ madness needs to end.”
• Rep. Diana Harshbarger via X: “BREAKING: A new @HHSGov report exposes the full scope of the ‘gender medicine’ scandal on our children, revealing how hospitals pushed and profited from sex-rejecting procedures on children. Hospitals had a clear financial incentive to push these procedures, turning healthy children into ‘captive patients’ who required a lifetime of drugs, surgeries, and follow-up care worth up to $170,000 per patient…Thank you @VP and @SecKennedy for referring hospitals and clinics to the @TheJusticeDept and @OIGatHHS for investigation. Our kids deserve real medicine, not harmful ideology and profit.”
• Rep. Anna Paulina Luna via X: “Any doctor who was complicit is selling underage children on body mutilating surgeries to cash in on insurance claims should be CRIMINALLY PROSECUTED.”
• Rep. Andy Ogles via X: “We the PEOPLE demand accountability for defrauding the American people and mutilating children’s bodies. There is no question that this administration is laser-focused on bringing these fraudsters to justice.”
• House Energy and Commerce Committee via X: “Radical Democrats turned gender ideology into a taxpayer-funded business — and children paid the price. A new @HHSGov report found providers manipulated more than $50 million in diagnoses to make transition procedures for minors easier to bill. Our children cannot be a bad actor’s cash cow.”
• NH State Rep. Lisa Mazur via X: “Finally these hospitals will be held accountable for their abuse of kids. Thank you @SecKennedy & @JDVance for making this happen. Long overdue! This is what I voted for!!”

Medical Professionals & Academics:

• Eithan Haim, M.D., general surgeon via X: “The critical detail to understand about the HHS Report, especially the section on healthcare fraud, is that the ‘signals’ are remarkably easy to identify. The list of fraudulent diagnoses are widely advertised by gender activists, easily detectable through publicly available claims data, and only consist of a dozen or so diagnosis codes. The same methods that are used to detect healthcare fraud for every other specialty in medicine is the same means to detect fraud in gender clinics. The only obstacle was getting around the massive political barrier of targeting one of the golden calfs of the political Left. Now it seems we have overcome that barrier.”
• Aaron Kheriaty, physician and psychiatrist via X: “I was happy to contribute to the first two chapters of this important report, published today by HHS, which shows how doctors and hospitals engaged in potentially fraudulent billing practices to push sex-rejecting procedures.”
• Southern Seminary Dean of the School of Theology & Christian Ethics & Public Theology Professor, Andrew Walker via X: “This is absolutely outstanding.”
• Dr. Roberta Lacerda, pediatric neurologist translated via X: “The end of the crime of chemical and surgical castration of children in the name of an ideological $science. It was never about scientific evidence.”
• Dr. Marcus De Brun, general practitioner and microbiologist via X: “Wolves in White Coats! That’s exactly what we have here in Ireland too…only worse!”

Advocates & Organizations:

• Prisha Mosley, detransitioner via X: “As a detransitioner who is seeking justice for what my doctors did to me, this is a welcome message. I never changed sex, I just became less healthy. Transition is medical fraud and abuse.”
• Soren Aldaco, detransitioner and Independent Women Ambassador via Daily Caller: “Most Americans are painfully unaware that pediatric ‘gender medicine’ is reaching a fever pitch. For the rest of the world, the tide has already turned. Studies out of the UK and Finland have urged caution, pointing to a weak evidence base, a lack of long-term data, and the back-seating of frontline psychological care. Adolescent detransitioners — people transitioned as children and teens — continue to come forward in droves. Look no further than the bombshell report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): ‘Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of ‘Gender Medicine.’’ In 64 pages, HHS alleges that hospitals, ‘gender clinics,’ and insurance companies have committed egregious misuses of power by driving young people struggling to develop a healthy sense of self to pursue elective hormones and surgeries. This bet — gambling physical health for a temporary mental health fix — can bag providers up to seven figures over a patient’s lifetime. This price tag helps explain why malpractice cases like mine can’t be dismissed as isolated.”
• Independent Women’s Law Center Director and report co-author, May Mailman via press release: “When Americans turn to their doctors, hospitals, and insurers, they place tremendous trust that these actors will help make them healthier and happier. Transgenderism instead puts kids on a dangerous path, well before they can consent to giving up their fertility and their future…This report is a must-read for how our healthcare industry put elitism and downright fraud ahead of scientific integrity and patient care.”
• Do No Harm Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Kurt Miceli via X: “For years, activist physicians have funneled vulnerable children into a pipeline of irreversible sex-rejecting procedures — padding their pockets as they go. They spurned scientific evidence, threw safeguards out the window, and in some instances appear to have engaged in fraudulent diagnosis coding to get paid. As we warned only a few months ago, gender ideologues may be able to skirt official coding guidelines to avoid proper reporting and scrutiny and to enable potentially fraudulent billing practices. HHS’ crackdown on these tactics will help protect vulnerable children, hold bad actors accountable, and restore integrity to healthcare.”
• Do No Harm Parent Advocate, January Littlejohn via X: “I’m grateful to see the American Psychological Association named in this report. It’s not just the medical community that pushed this pseudoscience. My field of mental health did as well and needs to be held accountable. We need to completely overhaul my field so therapists are adequately trained in how to ethically treat this social contagion cohort.”
• Center for Christian Virtue and report co-author, Aaron Baer via press release: “For years we were told ‘gender medicine’ was about compassionate care. The Wolves in White Coats report reveals it’s always been about the money, not healthcare. Doctors and hospitals turned healthy kids into lifelong patients, then lied on insurance forms — including to taxpayer-funded Medicaid — to make sure their pockets were filled. That’s fraud and abuse, but only the children have paid the price for it.”
• Ethics and Public Policy Center President, Ryan T. Anderson via X: “You need to watch this short video. It exposes medical malpractice, rampant fraud, and the real human lives damaged because of it.”
• Students for Life of America Policy Analyst Olivia D’Angelo via news release: “Forcing these mutilating substances and procedures on children has earned the medical establishment around $120 million since 2019, according to Do No Harm.”
• American Parents Coalition Executive Director, Alleigh Marré via X: “This is huge! All who perpetuated this fraud must be held accountable. Children’s health and safety must always come first.”
• Brownstone Institute President, Jeffrey Tucker via X: “I don't know what to call this but demonic. We have not yet come to terms with what happened. Thank you @RobertKennedyJr.”
• Heritage Foundation Vice President of Social and Domestic Policy, Jay Richards via X: “The new report (and accompanying mini-documentary) won't spell the end for the hundreds of pediatric gender operations in the US, but it could be the beginning of the end…”
• MAHA Action via X: “RFK Jr. and Vice President JD Vance say hospitals and clinics accused of performing life altering gender procedures while misleading families have been referred to the DOJ…”
• Dr. Austin Smith, Marketing Director for Vibe Labs Marketing via X: “This might be the greatest moment of the Trump Administration.”
• Moms for Liberty via Instagram: “‘Wolves in White Coats’ shows that hospitals and clinicians rapidly expanded experimental sex-rejecting interventions (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries) on minors despite weak evidence of long-term safety or efficacy.”
• Moms for Liberty Co-Founder, Bridget Ziegler, via X: “More proof that the GENDER CULT was rooted in lies and greed…and countless lives were harmed as a result.”
• Moms For Liberty Co-Founder, Tiffany Justice via X: “‘Wolves in White Coats’ accurate. More than anything that we have accomplished over the past 6 years, I am most thankful and proud of the work so many people across the United States have done to end gender ideology. So many children’s lives will be saved. Thank you @JDVance @SecKennedy @ADM_Christine.”
• Alliance Defending Freedom President, CEO, & Chief Counsel, Kristen Waggoner via X: “‘Gender-affirming care’ was always a lie. A lucrative lie for some in the medical industry. And a costly one for young people with lifelong scars. Thank you @JDVance, @SecKennedy, @ADM_Christine, and @HHSGov for working to expose the fraud, end the harm, and seek justice.”
• Gays Against Groomers via Instagram: “There is no way the Gender Industrial Complex survives this. This report is the final nail in its coffin. The wolves have finally been exposed. Now they MUST be held accountable.”
• Family Research Council via X: “Thank you, @HHSGov, for shining a light on fraud involving sex-rejecting procedures. While taxpayer dollars have been abused, far more alarming is the harm done to children at the hands of these hospitals.”
• Consumers’ Research Executive Director, Will Hild via The Center Square: “As if child mutilation wasn’t evil enough, it turns out the doctors and hospitals performing these procedures have been profiting off these horrific practices the entire time.”
• American Parents Coalition Executive Director, Alleigh Marrè via The Center Square: “…thanks to the work of the Trump Administration, hospitals and providers are being exposed for providing irreversible and harmful transgender interventions for kids, furthering the extent of this epidemic…These medical institutions that fraudulently provided drugs to children must be held accountable.”
• Protect Kids Colorado Executive Director, Erin Lee via X: “Nearly **$61 MILLION in sex-rejecting procedure claims for children** flagged by HHS for potential fraud and further investigation. Our country went from its first modern pediatric gender clinic opening in 2007 to **225+ hospitals and health systems operating pediatric sex-change programs** by the early 2020s. Now, VP JD Vance and HHS Secretary RFK Jr. are taking action — **referring hospitals and clinics identified in the report to the DOJ and HHS Inspector General for possible violations of federal law.** Follow the evidence. Follow the money. Protect kids. Enough is enough.”
• PA Family via blog post: “A shocking new report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reveals widespread fraud by doctors and hospitals involved in ‘gender medicine,’ with evidence of shady insurance coding practices, perverse financial incentives, and provisions of sex-rejecting procedures for minors. It raises serious questions about the use of sex-rejecting interventions on children, and Pennsylvania taxpayers appear to have paid a significant portion of the bill.”

Influencers & Members of the Media:

• California Post Editorial Board via opinion piece: “Californians can all agree on the need to treat other people with respect. If an individual feels that he or she wants to adopt a different gender identity, we can respect that wish. But there are boundaries. And they start with children. Children are not mature enough to make life-changing decisions that will cause irreversible changes to their bodies and their fertility. That is why children should not have surgery to remove their genitals or their breasts. They should not be prescribed drugs that block their hormones and prevent their bodies from developing. And they certainly should not be pressured into making those decisions by unscrupulous doctors trying to make a buck, or school officials trying to make a point.”
• Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson), host of The Benny Show via X: “BREAKING: Vice President JD Vance and RFK Jr. Just EXPOSED the Entire Radical Transgender Ideology Scheme Was For PROFIT…This is absolutely sickening. Thank you @JDVance and @RobertKennedyJr for exposing more fraud and protecting America’s next generation.”
• Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan), White House Correspondent for Daily Wire via X: “EXCLUSIVE: Vice President JD Vance’s Fraud Task Force is referring a number of hospitals and clinics to the DOJ and HHS Inspector General for possible violations of federal law. Those hospitals have billed millions in insurance claims for puberty blockers for children, according to a new HHS report first obtained by @realDailyWire.”
• Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal), podcaster via X: “JD Vance is dropping the f*cking HAMMER on Hospitals that were pushing experimental gender treatments on kids. The hospitals’ sickening idea? Lock in lifelong patients and big money! The new HHS report shows they may have been fraudulently billing Medicaid and insurers to cover it. Read it yourself. This is pure profit over kids.”
• Allison Sinclair, Host of The Rightside Podcast via X: “What is encouraging is not only are we talking about it, and RFK, and JD Vance, and RFK, and Brian Christine are talking about that crazy talk. Now we are actually holding people accountable. As a physician, you take an oath to do no harm. I can’t think of more harm besides purposely treating…children, the most vulnerable, and they are preying upon parents and their emotions, and their love for their children to incur these huge medical bills. This is a Ponzi…they are profiting off the emotions and the lives of these kids.”
• Gunther Eagleman (@GuntherEagleman), political commentator via X: “HHS just dropped a bombshell report exposing the gender clinic industry. Hospitals and clinics allegedly used shady billing codes to push sex-change procedures on kids that insurance might not have covered. Then locked them in as lifelong patients for hormones, labs, and complications. Detransitioners are speaking out…JD Vance is sending the findings to the DOJ. Any hospital that broke the law will be held accountable. This wasn’t medicine. It was a business model built on vulnerable kids. The cover-up is ending.”
• Gerald Posner (@geraldposner), investigative journalist via X: “The most significant federal report yet on the business of pediatric gender medicine dropped two days ago.  The New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and CNN have not covered it. This is real news. It cannot be ignored.”
• Catherine Herridge (@C_Herridge), investigative journalist via X: “Thank you @JDVance @HHSGov for acknowledging whistleblower @V_Sivadge who exposed alleged Medicaid Fraud at TX Children's hospital (TCH) over gender medicine for minors. The referral to @AGToddBlanche takes accountability a step further after the 10M settlement with TCH.”
• Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh), Chief Content Officer a Right Line News and Florida Voice News via X: “BREAKING — IT’S OFFICIAL: JD Vance and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just referred 225 hospitals and health systems to DOJ and HHS Inspector General for potential FEDERAL LAW VIOLATIONS, after they carried out transgender operations on children. I voted for this…”
• Kenny Webster (@KennethRWebster), host of The W&J Show with Kenny Webster via X: “Dept of Health & Human Services releases new report detailing cases of children who say they were preyed on and pressured by hospitals and doctors to undergo sex-change treatment case as minors.”
• Jay Rogers, columnist via Townhall: “When the British health system and a Trump-era HHS report land on the same conclusion from opposite sides of the Atlantic, you are not looking at a conspiracy. You are looking at data catching up to ideology…Building a medical-financial pipeline around the assumption that they [minors wanting to transition] will not change their minds was never science. It was a business model wearing a lab coat, and it took federal investigators to finally read the invoice.”
• Brandon Showalter (@BrandonMShow), journalist at The Christian Post via X: “Grateful. So grateful. Justice is long overdue.”
• Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) via X: “Follow the money.”
• Chris Stigall (@ChrisStigall), Host of The Chris Stigall Podcast via X: “Outstanding”
• Lara Logan (@laralogan), journalist and podcaster via X: “Money is one part — the other is spiritual. By tearing apart children’s minds & bodies, they attack the entire fabric of their lives, relationships & the functioning of families/society. Every attack on God’s creation is an attack on God himself.”

Headlines:

• Daily Wire: EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Opens New Front In War On Fraud, This Time In Child Sex-Changes
• POLITICO: Vance presses Justice Department to investigate hospitals over transgender care
• The Hill: Vance urges DOJ investigation into hospitals over billing for transgender care
• Reuters: Trump administration accuses hospitals of improper billing over gender care for minors
• Fox News: JD Vance calls on DOJ to prosecute alleged fraud in teen transgender treatment
• Fox News: Detransitioners reveal how doctors pushed them toward life-altering treatment as teens
• Newsmax: Vance: HHS Report Shows Gender Care Fraud for Profit
• Newsmax: Adm. Christine to Newsmax: ‘Financial Incentive’ Behind Trans Treatments
• NewsNation: New report recommends more oversight after alleged fraud in trans treatment
• Bloomberg: Trump Asks DOJ to Probe Hospitals Over Trans Health Coding
• New York Post: Hospitals, doctors got rich through shady gender-care billing tactics — and taking advantage of kids: damning report
• New York Post: ‘Detransitioners’ share sex-change horror stories about doctors pressuring them as impressionable teens: ‘Like a car salesman’
• California Post: Transgender drugs, surgery went too far: Leave the kids alone
• Fierce Healthcare: Trump administration refers providers, PBMs to DOJ over youth gender care billing
• The Washington Times: Feds accuse hospitals of pushing bogus gender-transition treatments to make money
• Daily Signal: Wolves in White Coats: HHS Exposes the Racket Behind ‘Gender-Affirming Care’
• Daily Signal: Hospitals ‘Got Rich’ and Were ‘Mutilating’ Children — Vance, HHS Officials Announce Report
• Daily Signal: Wolves in White Coats: HHS Exposes the Racket Behind ‘Gender-Affirming Care’
• Washington Examiner: HHS cites $50 million potential insurance fraud for ‘sex-rejecting’ procedures for minors
• Breitbart: HHS Report: Hospitals Used Fake Codes to Bill for Kids’ Sex-Change Drugs
• NTD: [CLIP] Compassionate Counseling Best for Gender Dysphoria: Assistant Health Secretary
• The Epoch Times: HHS Report on Alleged Pediatric Gender-Treatment Fraud: 5 Key Takeaways
• National Review: Lifelong Patients and Six-Figure Procedures: How Gender Transitions for Minors Became a Lucrative Business
• The Dallas Express: ‘Wolves in White Coats’: HHS Report Exposes $50M In Suspicious ‘Puberty Blocker’ Billing for Minors
• Independent Sentinel: Wolves in White Coats: Destroying Reality and Children
• RSBN: HHS releases ‘Wolves in White Coats’ report detailing alleged ‘Gender Medicine’ fraud
• Daily Caller: The Truth About America’s ‘Gender’ Crisis
• JustTheNews: Vance, Kennedy refer gender clinics for prosecution based on HHS billing fraud probe
• The Federalist: Vance Orders Fraud Probe Into Doctors For Concealing Trans Surgeries: ‘Should Go To Prison’
• The Straits Times: Trump asks DOJ to probe hospitals over trans health coding
• South Florida Hospital News and Healthcare Report: HHS Releases Report Exposing Fraudulent Insurance Coding For Sex-rejecting Procedures On Minors
• The Center Square: HHS: Hospitals used fraudulent coding for transgender procedures on minors
• Townhall: The Wolves Finally Got Caught
• The Post Millennial: BREAKING: JD Vance refers medical child sex change providers to DOJ for prosecution over fraud
• Christian Post: ‘Wolves in White Coats’: HHS finds $50M in fraudulent billing to hide sex-change procedures on kids
• National Catholic Register: Hospitals Profited from Harmful Gender Surgeries on Minors, HHS Report Says
• Western Journal: JD Vance and RFK Jr. Refer Hospitals and Clinics to DOJ in Response to 'Wolves in White Coats' Report
• Rocky Mountain Voice: Federal Fraud Task Force Targets Billing Practices Behind Pediatric Gender Treatments