A Hanford man who owned sleep clinics in Fresno and Tulare Counties has been sentenced to 19 months in prison for defrauding Medicare.
U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert announced Monday that Travis Gober, 45, will spend the next year and a half in prison.
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Driving the news: Gober owned VIP Sleep Center, which operated clinics in Fresno and Tulare Counties and performed sleep studies on patients to identify disorders, such as sleep apnea and narcolepsy.
- From 2019 to 2021, Gober submitted thousands of claims, totaling nearly $1 million, to Medicare for sleep studies that VIP Sleep Center never actually performed.
- Further, the claims falsely stated that the patients had been referred for the sleep studies by physicians who had previously worked with Gober. Medicare will only pay for a sleep study if a patient was referred by a physician.
- The Department of Justice said Gober committed the fraud in part to try to pay off debt and address other financial issues caused by his brother, Jeremy Gober.
Go deeper: Jeremy Gober, who owned Got Sleep center in Fresno and Orange Counties, is also under fire from the federal government for healthcare fraud.
- He billed over $8 million in claims to Medicare for studies that his company did not actually perform.
- He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for healthcare fraud. He also faces a mandatory two years in prison for identity theft.
