Firefighter cancer presumption in Pennsylvania
If cancer is tied to the exposures firefighters face, Pennsylvania presumes it came from the job, once you've served 4 years.
The law is Pa. Workers' Compensation Act § 108(r). The law applies to workers' comp claims.
Presumed means the law assumes your job caused the cancer, so your employer has to show it came from something else. Workers' comp (workers' compensation) is the insurance that pays medical bills and part of your lost pay when work makes you sick.
Conditions under Pennsylvania's law
- Your service lasted 4 years or more.
- If you're a volunteer, you're covered as well, but Pennsylvania Fire Information Reporting System reports must document your direct exposure.
- You must prove you were directly exposed to something the International Agency for Research on Cancer calls Group 1.
- Before you started firefighting or before you filed, you must have passed a physical exam, and it found no cancer.
- For the presumption to apply, your claim must be filed no later than 300 weeks after your final work day.
Your employer may claim firefighting didn't cause your cancer, but doing that requires solid evidence.
Questions about your diagnosis, your service record or your deadline go to the claims line: +1 833 853 0496
Cancers Pennsylvania covers
Any cancer qualifies when a Group 1 substance, as classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, caused it.
Among those cancers are:
- 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 Pennsylvania, how does a firefighter file a workers' comp claim for cancer?
- Put it in writing to your department that you have cancer and that you believe it came from the job. Save a copy for yourself.
- Give the claim to your employer's insurer, or file it directly with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, Bureau of Workers' Compensation. Name the law that applies (Pa. Workers' Compensation Act § 108(r)) on your form.
- Pull together your diagnosis, the dates you were hired and served, results from any physical exam, plus your fire and exposure records.
- Start soon. Workers' comp claims have time limits for telling your employer and for filing, and some are short.