The longtime owner and three other former executives of the now-closed Sacred Heart Hospital as well as four physicians have been indicted on federal charges alleging a decadelong fraud scheme involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks to doctors for referring patients to the hospital. The indictment comes six months after federal authorities raided the 119-bed facility on Chicago's West Side and arrested the hospital's former chief executive, Edward Novak, and several associates. A criminal complaint filed at that time portrayed the hospital as regularly shuttling nursing homes residents to the hospital and performing medically unnecessary and sometimes risky procedures, including tracheotomies, on patients.
