CMS demands financial data from children's hospitals on federally funded gender-affirming care

CMS Administrator Oz sent letters to selected hospitals providing pediatric gender-affirming care demanding, within 30 days, their informed-consent policies, planned changes to clinical guidelines, adverse-event data, and detailed financial information — billing codes, revenue and utilization since 2020, operating margins, and revenue forecasts for pediatric gender-affirming procedures paid "in whole or in part" by federal funds. Kennedy simultaneously wrote providers that HHS "expects" protocol changes. The demands functioned as the information-gathering stage for later funding restrictions, with several hospitals curtailing care under the implicit funding threat. (See also sections 2, 13.)