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Planned Parenthood Pays $4.3 Million in Fraud Settlement

AP

A Planned Parenthood affiliate in east Texas has agreed to pay $4.3 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that the group illegally billed Medicaid for unnecessary and unrendered medical services, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The non-profit organization, which estimates that it provides medical information and services, including abortions, to three million people in the U.S. each year, denied any wrongdoing as part of the settlement announced Friday by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas.

Friday's settlement resolved a whistle-blower suit filed by Karen Reynolds, a former Planned Parenthood employee who worked at a clinic in Lufkin, Texas, about 120 miles north of Houston. Ms. Reynolds claimed that Planned Parenthood billed Medicaid and other government programs for services that were not provided or that were not needed by patients, including birth-control counseling and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

Neither Reynolds nor her attorneys at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) could comment because of a confidentiality agreement, an ACLJ spokesman said.

Planned Parenthood denied the allegation, and the settlement does not force the abortion provider to accept the charges.

The settlement is another blow to the embattled organization, the Journal noted.

The issue comes at a difficult time for Planned Parenthood in Texas. The state last year barred Planned Parenthood and other organizations that are affiliated with abortion providers from receiving funds from a government program that subsidizes health services for uninsured, low-income women.

Texas also enacted a law this summer restricting abortions and imposing new medical requirements on abortion providers that Planned Parenthood said will have an adverse effect on its operations.

Published under: Planned Parenthood