Highlight/Lowlights from this Chicago Tribune article
The Justice Department's criminal probe into Universal Health Services has entered a new and more serious phase, focusing on potential wrongdoing by the corporation as a whole and not just its individual facilities.
Universal, the nation's largest behavioral health firm, had previously disclosed a federal investigation into 18 of its 190 psychiatric centers across the country.
But in late March, the department's Criminal Frauds Section notified the company that "Universal as a corporate entity" is now under scrutiny, according to a regulatory disclosure filed by Universal on Tuesday.
As federal agents examine allegations of fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billing by the corporate office, they have highlighted one facility in particular, the company disclosure said: Hartgrove Hospital on Chicago's West Side.
[...]
The Justice Department began investigating Universal facilities in Illinois in 2008 after the Tribune documented allegations that juvenile state wards and other youths were sexually assaulted at the firm's west suburban Riveredge psychiatric hospital.
The state Department of Children and Family Services in response commissioned the University of Illinois at Chicago's psychiatry department to examine conditions at Riveredge, Hartgrove and other psychiatric facilities that serve Illinois wards.
In a 2010 report, the UIC experts described an environment of chaos, physical attacks and sexual assaults of young patients at Hartgrove, saying the West Side facility was regularly understaffed and over capacity.
Also part of the expanding federal probe is Universal's Rock River Academy, a 59-bed Rockford resident treatment center that promises intensive, round-the-clock care to female state wards who suffered abuse and neglect, as well as disadvantaged girls with mental health problems.
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