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Florida bans Medicaid use on gender-affirming treatments

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Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) has reportedly finalized rules that prevent health care providers from billing the state’s Medicaid program for gender-affirming medical treatments. 
Politico reported on Thursday that the agency added new language to Medicaid program rules stating that it would not cover services for the treatment of gender dysphoria, including sex reassignment surgery, puberty blockers or hormone therapies.
The outlet said the language will take effect on Aug. 21.
This action comes after the state’s AHCA announced in June that it had determined those services were “not consistent with generally accepted professional medical standards and are experimental and investigational with the potential for harmful long-term affects.”
In a release detailing a “robust review of available medical evidence and the assessment of five medical experts,” the agency said that scientific studies supporting the treatments were “weak to very weak,” evidence showing benefits from hormone replacement therapies is “very weak,” that there were no randomized control trials on the effectiveness of “gender-affirming” care, there’s a lack of long-term follow-up studies after reassignment surgery and that studies did not show that the use of puberty blockers improves mental health.

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