More Indictments In Sacred Heart Case
Although 119-bed Sacred Heart Hospital closed last July and is now being auctioned off piecemeal, its legacy is living on in the form of fresh indictments of former employees and associates of the Chicago-based facility.
Former Sacred Heart Chief Operating Officer Anthony Puorro, 57, and marketing and recruitment chief Noemi Velgara, 64, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Chicago last week. Rajiv Kandala, M.D., 41, who practiced at the hospital, was also indicted.
The two former hospital executives are facing single counts of conspiracy to violate healthcare anti-kickback laws, accused of paying as much as $350,000 to divert the patients of Medicare and Medicaid physicians to the facility. The money was paid in the guise of lease, consulting, teaching and equipment payments, according to the indictment. The payments were made between 2004 and April of this year, when the first arrests in the case were made.
Prosecutors allege that the scheme impacted care at the hospital, compelling medical staffs to string out stays to as long as 28 days, the longest covered by Medicare, and to possibly even perform unnecessary medical procedures such as tracheotomies.
Earlier this year, five other hospital execs and physicians were indicted, including Sacred Heart owner Edward Novak, 58, who is now facing nine separate charges. All were accused of violating the kickback statutes, and were also named in the most recent indictment. A former Sacred Heart COO who served just prior to Puorro was also named as a co-conspirator but has not been charged. And another physician who practicted at Sacred Heart, Kenneth S. Nave, M.D., 51, was charged with dispensing medications without a proper license. He had also been named in the original indictment last spring.
Sacred Heart filed for bankruptcy and closed not long after $2 million in Medicare funds was seized from various business accounts.
The investigation of Sacred Heart is part of a joint Justice Department and Department of Health and Human Services effort to curtail Medicare fraud. The hospital had been under scrutiny since 2011, according to officials.
