Firefighter cancer presumption in Kansas
Kansas will presume cancer is job-related once you've served 5 years, so long as it's tied to what firefighters are exposed to.
The law here: K.S.A. 74-4952. It applies to disability and death benefits from the retirement system.
Presumed means the law assumes your job caused the cancer, so your employer has to show it came from something else. Kansas's cancer law is separate from workers' comp, which is the insurance that pays medical bills and lost pay when work makes you sick.
Conditions under Kansas's law
- Your service lasted at least 5 years.
- You must hold membership in your public employee retirement system and contribute to it.
- Your cancer type must be one that heat, radiation or a substance known to cause cancer can produce.
- When you come back from a duty disability that lasted 6 months or longer, contributing again for a minimum of 2 years is required.
Your retirement system can claim another cause for your cancer, but then you must prove that duty caused it.
Questions about your diagnosis, your service record or your deadline go to the claims line: +1 833 853 0496
Cancers the Kansas law covers
Every cancer is included as long as heat, radiation or a substance known to cause cancer can produce that type.
Cancers in that group include:
- Bladder cancer
- Brain cancer
- Breast cancer
- Colon or rectal cancer
- Esophagus cancer
- Kidney cancer
- Leukemia
- Liver cancer
- Lung cancer
- Mesothelioma
- Multiple myeloma
- Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- Ovarian, cervical or uterine cancer
- Pancreatic cancer
- Prostate cancer
- Skin cancer, melanoma included
- Stomach cancer
- Testicular cancer
- Throat or mouth cancer
- Thyroid cancer
In Kansas, what's the process for filing a firefighter cancer claim?
- To claim retirement system disability and death benefits, talk to your department or its pension or benefit board about the steps, and name the law that applies (K.S.A. 74-4952). That board is the office that decides retirement and disability pay for your department.
- You can also file a workers' comp claim, which is a second claim with the Division of Workers Compensation at the Kansas Department of Labor. Kansas's cancer law does not help with that one, so your doctor has to say in writing that your work caused the cancer.
- Pull together your diagnosis, the dates you were hired and served, any physical exam results, plus your exposure and fire records.
- Try to start soon, because time limits apply. Ask your department or the board how long you have to apply. A workers' comp claim has its own deadlines.
Check another cancer ยท See the states that list each cancer