6 arrested in alleged kickback scheme at Sacred Heart Hospital
April 16, 2013|By Jason Meisner | Tribune reporter
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The three-year investigation came to light early Tuesday when federal agents arrested Novak, 58, of Park Ridge, as well as another hospital executive and four physicians in connection with a scheme that prosecutors said netted more than $225,000 in cash and at least $2 million in health care program reimbursements.
Authorities said the scheme at Sacred Heart subjected the poor and elderly to sometimes risky procedures they didn't need.
"Any time you come across a case where patients are being used as pawns for profit, it is troublesome," said Lamont Pugh III, who heads the inspector general's office for the Department of Health and Human Services in the Chicago area
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But it was concern about the unnecessary tracheotomies that caused federal investigators to move in when they did, Shapiro said.
"As you know, these are procedures which involved inserting a tube into the patient's windpipe or actually surgically cutting a hole in the patient's throat," Shapiro said....
