But a second UAB whistleblower, rehabilitation-medicine physician Jay Meythaler, filed his complaint in June 2004. And it addresses wrongdoing from 2003, which was after Capilouto had taken office as provost. (See the full Meythaler complaint at the end of this post.)
How bad was the problem at UAB? Meythaler said it involved both UAB and the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation (HSF), which oversees physician services and patient care. In his role as a "relator" in the qui tam case, Meythaler states:
This double billing problem, and/or problem of improperly billing Medicare for research testing, was rampant within the UAB system. HSF performed the billing for UAB and frequently double billed or billed a provider when the test was supposed to be paid for by a grant. Relator participated in faculty senate meetings and voiced his concerns at those meetings about this problem. Other physicians and researchers joined in his concern.
Was Capilouto present in such meetings? Was he aware of the research fraud taking place all around him? It's hard to believe that he wasn't. From Meythaler's complaint:
The misappropriation of indirect grant funds occurs across the board at UAB.
Meythaler cites four of his own grants where he was forced to use clinical income to cover his indirect research costs. Why is that a problem? The federal government and the taxpayers who fund it are not getting their money's worth for research projects. From the complaint:
The government is damaged in two ways. First, the money the government has allotted for indirect costs is misappropriated and the claims for payment under the grant are false claims for payment because the defendants are not using the indirect cost money for the purposes of the grant. Second, because the PIs (principal investigators) are forced to work more clinical hours in order to generate revenue to cover their indirect costs, the PIs have less time to actually work on their grants and the government is not getting the work from the PI that it is paying for.
This scheme, Meythaler states, revolved around the provost's office:
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