Investigative

The media paints Planned Parenthood as a victim. These instances of fraud and abuse prove otherwise.

By Carole Novielli | September 2, 2019 , 11:39am

If there’s one thing Planned Parenthood has, it’s a good public relations machine — and this includes the media. Mainstream media has been busy painting Planned Parenthood as the victim for its corporate decision to voluntarily exit the Title X Family Planning Program because Planned Parenthood refused to separate its abortion business from taxpayer-funded services. The media has done a good job of protecting the nation’s most profitable abortion provider, despite the corporation’s many scandals and abuses, which should have resulted in all tax dollars being pulled long ago. These scandals are laid out in detail below, and some of them are jaw-dropping.

Planned Parenthood Abuses

1. Failure to report child sexual abuse

Planned Parenthood and others in the abortion industry fail to protect children by not following mandatory reporting laws. As an entity which received the federal Title X funds as well as millions of additional taxpayer dollars through Medicaid and other government programs, Planned Parenthood should be held to the highest standards. Instead, time and again, actual criminal cases have indicated that Planned Parenthood ignores obvious red flags of abuse and fails to report the suspicion of abuse — specifically child sexual abuse. A March 2016 report by the Congressional Research Service makes it clear that reporting even the suspicion of child sexual abuse is expected of Title X providers. The report stated, “Although minors are to receive confidential services, Title X providers are not exempt from state notification and reporting laws on child abuse, child molestation, sexual abuse, rape, or incest.”

A docuseries and report published by Live Action exposed how Planned Parenthood aids abusers and shows how the abortion corporation violated this requirement.

2. Medicaid Fraud

Former Planned Parenthood staffers have claimed that the taxpayer-funded agency has a history of overbilling or marking up the cost of birth control drugs.

In 2015, former Planned Parenthood manager Sue Thayer testified before a Congressional committee accusing Planned Parenthood of filing “[…] false claims totaling about $28 million with Iowa’s Medicaid program for (1) illegally dispensing ‘medically unnecessary’ quantities of oral contraceptive pills and birth control patches to C-Mail Medicaid patients and doing so without a prescription; (2) fraudulently billing the Iowa Medicaid program for abortion-related services; and (3) coercing ‘donations’ from Medicaid patients.”

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) website highlights several instances:

PP Great Plains and Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains paid $18,808.92 for allegedly violating the Civil Monetary Penalties Law.
PP Health Systems, Inc. in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, agreed to pay $1,572,752.80 for potentially violating the Civil Monetary Penalties Law.
PP Gulf Coast in Houston paid $4.3 million to resolve civil claims that it billed for items and services related to birth control counseling, STD testing, and contraceptives when they were not medically necessary or were not provided.
Separately, PP Gulf Coast agreed to pay $1.4 million in a Texas Medicaid billing fraud case.
PP of North Texas: Texas Health and Human Services Commission claimed Medicaid reimbursement of at least $129,000 for family planning services provided by PP of North Texas that did not comply with Federal and State Medicaid requirements.

Live Action News previously detailed additional violations — including several identified by the Charlotte Lozier Institute and Alliance Defending Freedom — totaling at least $8.5 million in waste, abuse, and potential fraud in the following states:

California (two audits of two affiliates): $5,213,645.92 30
Connecticut: $18,791
Illinois: $387,000
Louisiana (two audits of one affiliate): $6,147.18
Maine: $33,294.83
Nebraska: $3,537
New York (seven audits of four affiliates): $1,615,083.25
Ohio: none found
Oklahoma: unknown, but the overbilling rates have been documented as 14.1%, 18%, and 20.3%
Texas (two audits of two affiliates): $538,703.10 -$658,735.97
Washington (three audits of two or three affiliates):$640,595.88
Wisconsin (27 audits of one affiliate): $95,466.04

READ: Former Planned Parenthood staffers explain how Medicaid fraud is being committed

3. 340B Drug Discount abuse

Planned Parenthood’s history of fraud extends to the 340B Drug Discount Program, a federal government program which allows participating drug manufacturers to give certain covered health care entities access to discounted prices on outpatient drugs. Live Action News previously documented incidents where Planned Parenthood used duplicate discounts against HRSA requirements and were in violation of program rules.

In one state (New York), audits discovered the violation affected multiple Planned Parenthood locations.

Planned Parenthood NY HRSA 340B drug overbilling violations

Letters to manufacturers were issued after audits of:

And another PP received sanctions:

Planned Parenthood Association of Utah

4. HIPAA violations

Live Action News has previously detailed Planned Parenthood’s multiple violations of privacy under the federal HIPAA law, including massive privacy breaches due to Planned Parenthood’s negligence, which exposed thousands of Planned Parenthood patients.

PP of Greater Washington and North Idaho – 10,700 patients
PP Southwest Ohio – 5,000 patients
PP of the Heartland – 2,500 patients (2016)
PP of the Heartland – 515 patients (2018)

HHS, Office of Civil Rights: Planned Parenthood Privacy Breach

TAB, a records management company working with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for over a decade, identified what they called “some serious problems” with the records of Planned Parenthood of Illinois, which oversees 17 branch locations. In TAB’s document, they suggested that the corporation’s records were getting lost in the mail and seen by those not employed by PP.

Privacy breaches and complaints were also reported at:

Additional complaints are currently under review by Live Action News.

5. Discrimination

Live Action News previously documented accusations of discrimination by Planned Parenthood against its own staffers, for:

Live Action News also reported on the corporation’s employees who exposed long-held secrets, inner workings, and toxic attitudes of the organization, including: