Did you work at the Nevada Test Site?
There is a federal program for people who worked at the Nevada Test Site, and it is not widely advertised. It is called EEOICPA. It pays compensation, and it opens a medical benefit that covers care for the accepted illness for life. Whether it applies to you starts with one thing: where you worked.
You did not have to work for the government.
You did not have to work for the Department of Energy. Its contractors and subcontractors are covered the same way, and most of the people who worked at the Nevada Test Site were never federal employees. They worked for REECo, for EG&G, for Wackenhut, for a paving company or a bus line or a drilling outfit out of Las Vegas.
Department of Energy contractor and subcontractor employees are covered the same as federal employees, and the job title does not matter. Craft and construction, security, drivers, cooks, clerks, custodians and warehouse staff worked at a covered facility exactly as the scientists did.
Compensation, and a medical card that pays providers directly.
The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act covers people who worked at Department of Energy facilities and became ill from that work. The Nevada Test Site, now the Nevada National Security Site, is one of those facilities for work from 1951 on. So is the Tonopah Test Range.
The Department of Labor decides every claim. Alara assesses the patient, coordinates the physician documentation and the home-health authorization, and provides the authorized care. It does not file claims and nothing here is a determination of eligibility.
For some years, the radiation dose does not have to be reconstructed.
The Special Exposure Cohort covers two periods at the Nevada Test Site. Inside them, a worker with one of 22 specified cancers does not need a dose reconstruction for Part B.
This is worth checking years before anyone needs a nurse.
Alara is a home health agency, and home health is what an accepted claim eventually pays for. But a claim takes months, and the work history takes longest of all to reconstruct. Someone who checks at 68 is in a very different position at 78 from someone who starts at 78.
So there is no need to be ill, and no need to want care, to find out where you stand.
Four questions, and a nurse reads the answers.
Where the work was. Who the paycheck came from. Roughly when. What a doctor has said about your health since. That is enough for a nurse to say whether there is something here worth opening — and if there is not, to say that too.
Nothing here is a determination of eligibility, and nobody takes a percentage of anything. Claim help through the Department of Labor’s Resource Center is free.
What people ask first.
I worked for a contractor, not the Department of Energy. Does that matter?
Contractor and subcontractor employees at a covered facility are covered the same as federal employees. Most of the people who worked at the Nevada Test Site were contractor employees.
I was only there a few months on a job. Is that too short?
It depends what is being claimed. The Special Exposure Cohort periods require at least 250 aggregate work days, but a claim outside those periods does not, and days across separate stints add up. It is worth having the dates looked at rather than deciding for yourself.
I am not sick. Is there any point?
A claim needs a covered illness, so there is nothing to file until there is a diagnosis. What is worth doing now is establishing the employment history while it can still be documented, so that nothing has to be reconstructed under pressure later.
What does Alara get out of this?
Alara is a Nevada-licensed, nurse-owned home health agency that provides the care an accepted White Card pays for. It does not file claims and takes no percentage of any award. Claim help through the Department of Labor’s Resource Center is free.
What if the worker has died?
A survivor may be able to file for compensation. The medical benefit covers the worker’s own care and does not transfer, so the two questions are separate. A case review can say which one is in play.
A nurse reads it, not a form.
A case review takes a few minutes and needs no records, no claim number and no appointment. Nothing here is a determination of eligibility.
Every company on the DOL list → Asking on behalf of a parent → What the White Card covers →