Thayer v. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland

Summary

ADF represents Susan Thayer, a former director of two Iowa Planned Parenthood clinics, in a False Claims Act lawsuit seeking to hold her former employer responsible for nearly $28 million in “repeated false, fraudulent, and/or ineligible claims for reimbursements” to Medicaid.

The complaint alleges that Planned Parenthood billed Medicaid for ineligible abortion-related expenses, billed excessive amounts of birth control pills through an automatic “C-Mail” (contraceptive mail) renewal program, re-billed some pills that were returned undeliverable, overbilled for services not performed by qualified health care professionals, and billed for prescriptions not properly prescribed by a physician.

The complaint also alleges that Planned Parenthood coerced partial payments from low income patients and yet counted those payments as voluntary contributions so that it could bill the full amount of those services to Medicaid. Thayer also alleges that Planned Parenthood caused area hospitals to unknowingly submit false claims to Medicaid by encouraging women to report to an emergency room with any abortion complications and to tell the E.R. that they were experiencing a miscarriage – causing the E.R. to seek reimbursement from Medicaid for services that were ineligible completions of abortions.

What’s at stake

Keeping taxpayer funds out of the hands of abortionists

Our role in this case

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys serve as lead counsel in the case.