35-1005.

Enhanced cancer benefits; provide and maintain; minimum benefits; additional payment upon death; conditions.

(1) Beginning on and after January 1, 2022, any rural or suburban fire protection district, airport authority, city, village, or nonprofit corporation may provide and maintain enhanced cancer benefits. If such benefits are provided, they shall include, at a minimum, the following:

(a) A lump-sum benefit of twenty-five thousand dollars for each diagnosis payable to a firefighter upon acceptable proof to the insurance carrier or other payor of a diagnosis by a board-certified physician in the medical specialty appropriate for the type of cancer diagnosed that there are one or more malignant tumors characterized by the uncontrollable and abnormal growth and spread of malignant cells with invasion of normal tissue, and that either:

(i) There is metastasis and:

(A) Surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy is medically necessary; or

(B) There is a tumor of the prostate, provided that it is treated with radical prostatectomy or external beam therapy; or

(ii) Such firefighter has terminal cancer, his or her life expectancy is twenty-four months or less from the date of diagnosis, and he or she will not benefit from, or has exhausted, curative therapy;

(b) A lump-sum benefit of six thousand two hundred fifty dollars for each diagnosis payable to a firefighter upon acceptable proof to the insurance carrier or other payor of a diagnosis by a board-certified physician in the medical specialty appropriate for the type of cancer involved that either:

(i) There is carcinoma in situ such that surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy has been determined to be medically necessary;

(ii) There are malignant tumors which are treated by endoscopic procedures alone; or

(iii) There are malignant melanomas; and

(c)(i) A monthly benefit of one thousand five hundred dollars payable to a firefighter, of which the first payment shall be made six months after total disability and submission of acceptable proof of such disability to the insurance carrier or other payor that such disability is caused by cancer and that such cancer precludes the firefighter from serving as a firefighter. Such benefit shall continue for up to thirty-six consecutive monthly payments.

(ii) Such monthly benefit shall be subordinate to any other benefit actually paid to the firefighter solely for such disability from any other source, not including private insurance purchased solely by the firefighter, and shall be limited to the difference between the amount of such other pay benefit and the amount specified in this section.

(iii) Any firefighter receiving such monthly benefit may be required to have his or her condition reevaluated. In the event any such reevaluation reveals that such person has regained the ability to perform duties as a firefighter, then his or her monthly benefits shall cease the last day of the month of the reevaluation.

(iv) In the event that there is a subsequent reoccurrence of a disability caused by cancer which precludes the firefighter from serving as a firefighter, he or she shall be entitled to receive any remaining monthly benefits.

(2) A firefighter shall also be entitled to an additional payment of enhanced cancer death benefits in the amount of fifty thousand dollars payable to his or her beneficiary or, if no beneficiary is named, to such firefighter's estate upon acceptable proof by a board-certified physician that such firefighter's death resulted from complications associated with cancer.

(3) A firefighter shall be ineligible for benefits under the Firefighter Cancer Benefits Act if he or she is already provided paid firefighter cancer benefits pursuant to section 35-1001.