Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sued Over Texas Cancer Research Pay Review

The US Department of Health and Human Services is refusing to reimburse $13.9 million in medical training costs despite initiating the review that uncovered the underpayments, a new lawsuit from University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center alleges.

The lawsuit seeks to force HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to instruct a Medicare contractor to make good on the underpayments from 2013 to 2018 and complains that an administrative board wrongly tossed the hospital’s challenge for lack of jurisdiction.

Kennedy’s failure to correct cost reports that were reopened by his office “is unjustifiably unexplained,” MD Anderson argued in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Kennedy is one of two HHS defendants along with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The renowned cancer hospital argues that reimbursement is proper under a 2021 ruling from the US District Court for the District of Columbia that found the health department had underpaid academic medical centers for training costs.

The ruling came after the department had already reopened MD Anderson’s cost reports to recalculate payments for nursing and allied health education relating to the Medicare Advantage program.

Before suing, MD Anderson lost its challenge at a reimbursement review board that said the reopening regulation permitted the contractor to perform a recalculation of the hospital’s payment but without making corrections to the formula that the hospital says produced the underpayment.

“Such arbitrary application of the law cannot withstand even modest judicial scrutiny,” the lawsuit said.

MD Anderson Cancer Center is represented by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.

The case is Univ. of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center v. Kennedy, S.D. Tex., No. 4:26-cv-02969, 4/14/26.