Chicago, Illinois, July 10, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Planned Parenthood has once again come under the spotlight for questionable Medicaid billing practices.
Crain’s Chicago Business reports that Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Caroline Hoke was reimbursed for over $3 million by Medicaid during 2009, officially making the Chicago-based abortionist the second-highest-paid doctor of the program at that time.
A spokesman from the state Department of Healthcare and Family Services (DHFS) said that Medicaid is withholding further payments until “billing issues” are resolved. Hoke reportedly has not received Medicaid payments since 2011.
But Carole Brite, CEO of Planned Parenthood Illinois, has defended the billing practices of the Hoke, calling the investigation a “routine review.”
“There’s no fraud, no wrongdoing,” she said. She added that her organization will have to repay the state, but declined to say how much.
Brite said that Hoke continues to provide abortion-related services to Medicaid patients, expecting that the issues will be resolved and that she will once again be reimbursed.
The investigation of Hoke comes at a time when Planned Parenthood centers nationwide are being accused by former employees of massive systemic Medicaid fraud.
Former Planned Parenthood clinic director Sue Thayer went public today with a lawsuit against the abortion giant’s Iowa affiliate.
The suit accuses Planned Parenthood of submitting “repeated false, fraudulent, and/or ineligible claims for reimbursements” to Medicaid, as well as failure to meet acceptable standards of medical practice.
Former manager at a Texas Planned Parenthood Abby Johnson recently filed a federal “whistleblower” lawsuit against the local Planned Parenthood affiliate, her former workplace, for allegedly defrauding federal taxpayers of more than $5.5 million in a long-running scheme using Medicaid claims.
Johnson told LifeSiteNews that she filed the lawsuit to “expose the corruption” at Planned Parenthood and “to show the taxpayer how their money is being spent at Planned Parenthood.”
Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called the growing number of lawsuits against the abortion giant nationwide “even more evidence that the American taxpayer is being defrauded by Planned Parenthood.”
“Planned Parenthood’s harmful and dishonest practices and cannot be ignored,” said Yoest. “With such evidence consistently building, the American public deserves answers.”