A person may wonder, do fraudsters sleep? Jeremy Gober owned and operated the Got Sleep center, which was a sleep clinic in Fresno and Orange County, California. Sleep clinics perform diagnostic sleep studies to identify disorders like sleep apnea and narcolepsy. Because of the serious health risks of not treating sleep disorders, insurance companies generally cover the evaluation of a sleep study. Which Gober may have dreamed about?
From August 2016 through July 2020, Jeremy Gober submitted thousands of false claims to Medicare for sleep studies that were never conducted. This included sleep studies where the patients had actually died before the dates on which the studies were purportedly performed. Gober fabricated the claims, including falsifying referrals from physicians with whom he had worked . Gober added the physician referrals because Medicare does not pay for a sleep study unless a physician referral is included in the insurance claim.
On September 18, 2023, Gober was found guilty of health care fraud and identity theft. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 16, 2024. He faces up to 10 years in prison where sleep might elude him.
Gober apparently committed his crimes to pay off company debts his brother, Jeremy, incurred without Gober’s knowledge. However, it turns out it’s a family business. In 2022 , the brother, Jeremy Gober, was charged in a separate 11-count indictment for $8 million in the same kind of scheme. A fraudster lying about his motive. Shocking.
A better question might be, how do fraudsters sleep with themselves.
Excellent job by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General in catching these two.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Sleep Center Fraudsters Plead Guilt to Medicare Scam” published by The Business Journal on November 6, 2023
The second in a pair of Valley brothers has pleaded guilty in a $1.5 million Medicare scam run from their Fresno-area sleep clinics. Jeremy Gober, 42, of Hanford, pleaded guilty Monday to health care fraud and aggravated identity theft charges for submitting more than $1.5 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medi-Cal for sleep studies, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
With his older brother Travis Gober, Jeremy co-owned and co-operated Got Sleep Inc., which operated sleep clinics in Fresno and Orange Counties. Sleep clinics perform diagnostic sleep studies to identify disorders like sleep apnea and narcolepsy.