DOL to create special unit to handle federal firefighter cancer claims
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As firefighter unions continue to press Congress to act on cancer presumption legislation, the Department of Labor filed a bulletin Tuesday promising to provide “targeted instructions to claims staff on the handling of certain occupational disease claims filed by federal firefighters.”
The U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, which administers the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, which covers injuries suffered by federal employees and includes diseases “proximately caused by federal employment,” says it will establish a special claims handling unit and provide “special training” to focus solely on federal firefighters’ cancer claims.
“While the DOL is unable to unilaterally establish a cancer presumption, this new partnership will better educate… staffers and should lead to more approvals of benefits for firefighters battling service-connected cancer,” the bulletin states.
The department says it “will establish new connections between the special claims handling unit and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to assess workers compensation claims from firefighters suffering from cancer.”
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