To help ensure that medical radiation is safe, Medicare insists that certain highly technical cancer treatments be administered only when a patient’s radiation oncologist is present or nearby.
But when one of Florida’s biggest physician practices submitted 62 claims for treatments by Dr. Todd J. Scarbrough, it turned out that he had not just been absent from the clinic — he had not even been in the country, according to federal officials. Instead, they said, Dr. Scarbrough had been in Cancun, Mexico, and Seoul, South Korea.