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EEOICPA Frequently Asked Questions

The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) is a multi-faceted program that covers many different care components of its beneficiaries. Below is a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS) that energy workers and their families might have about the EEOICPA program.

For more information on EEOICPA parts B and E, click here.

The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) was enacted by Congress in 2001 to compensate workers who contracted certain illnesses from working in nuclear weapons production primarily during the Cold War era. The EEOICPA provides lump sum payments and medical benefits to sick energy workers and/or their survivors.

Anyone who worked at a Department of Energy nuclear facility and contracted certain illnesses because they were exposed to radiation or hazardous chemicals could be eligible to receive benefits from this program. Surviving family members may also be eligible for lump-sum compensation. There are two parts to the program that outline specific details of the act: EEOICPA Part B and EEOICPA Part E of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA).

Haven Home Health expert-trained EEOICPA knowledgeable staff members can assist you in starting a claim through the EEOICPA program. Contact a knowledgeable and highly-trained staff member.

After you file your EEOICPA claim with your Haven Home Health Care expert, the government's Division of Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation (DEEOIC) will assemble a case file containing the application and evidence that shows your eligibility for compensation and benefits. The DEEOIC claims examiners will work with you and with Haven Home Health Care to obtain the necessary evidence to process your claim. Once all of the necessary information is collected and analyzed by the DEEOIC, the Division of Energy Employees will issue a "Recommended Decision" to accept or deny your claim.

When you receive your EEOICPA Recommended Decision regarding your EEOICPA claim in the mail, it's important that you read the recommendation letter and accompanying materials thoroughly. The recommended decision may cover either all or some of your claimed conditions, and different parts of the decision may require different actions on your part. After the district office issues the recommended decision, your case file is sent to the Final Adjudication Branch (FAB) for review and issuance of a final decision.

At that point, after the Final Adjudication Branch (FAB) sends you their final approval letter, you can choose to agree or disagree with the recommended decision.

If you agree with ALL of the recommended decisions, you can sign the waiver of objections included in the decision packet and return it to the FAB. By signing this form, you indicate that you are not going to challenge any of the conclusions in the recommended decision.

If you agree with PART of the recommended decisions, you can sign what is called a Bifurcated Waiver, in which you will describe which parts of the recommended decision you agree with and which parts you disagree with. At that point, you can request a hearing or review of the written record on the portion you disagree with. In this case, you may be issued two separate final decisions.

If you disagree with ALL of the recommended decisions, you have 60 days from the date of the recommended decision to file objections. These objections must be in writing and must state the reasons for your disagreement. You may request a hearing on your objections, but you are not required to request a hearing.

Your Haven Home Health Care expert-trained staff member can help you with the analysis of your recommendation and the subsequent steps you need to take to finalize the recommendation. For help with this process, simply contact the Haven Home Health Care team.

Part B of the EEOICPA was enacted to provide compensation to workers with beryllium disease, silicosis, or radiation induced cancer. Employees, or their survivors, whose claims are approved may receive a lump-sum payment of $150,000 and medical benefits for the covered illness.

For more on what types of diseases and illnesses are covered under the EEOICPA, including Beryllium Disease, Beryllium Sensitivity and Chronic Silicosis, check out the EEOICPA care page.

In October 2004, Congress amended the EEOICPA with Part E which provides compensation and medical benefits for DOE contractor and subcontractor employees whose illnesses were caused by exposure to any toxic substance while working at a DOE facility. Qualified survivors are the spouse of the employee and children who were either under the age of 18, full time students under the age of 23, or any age and incapable of self support at the time of the employee's death. The passage of this legislation means some individuals who have received payments under the existing Part B may be eligible for a new federal payment if qualified under Part E.

For more on what types of diseases and illnesses are covered under the EEOICPA, including Beryllium Disease, Beryllium Sensitivity and Chronic Silicosis, check out the EEOICPA care page.

*Information on Parts B and E of the EEOICPA program was gathered from the U.S. Department of Energy website

Under the EEOICPA, energy workers are NOT responsible for any part of their covered care costs. Approved energy workers will pay ZERO out of pocket costs for their EEOICPA care.

After your EEOICPA claim is approved, you will receive a Medical Benefits Identification Card (often called a "White Card"). The card should be presented at the time of treatment for any accepted conditions that you have been approved for under your EEOICPA claim. The front side of your card will contain your name and the diagnosis code for the condition(s) you have been approved for. It will also state that there is no co-pay or deductible expense to be paid by you.

The back of the card contains the address that your physician needs to send bills to, and a toll-free telephone number for medical billing questions. It also contains a 10-digit number for Internet access to your medical billing file that will allow you to check the status of your medical bills.

It's important that you present your Medical Benefits Identification Card every time you go to the doctor for treatment. Showing your medical provider your EEOICPA Medical Benefits Identification Card will help the medical provider bill for services properly. It should be noted that you also must provide your Social Security number to the medical provider when you present them with your Medical Benefits Identification Card.

Haven Home Health Care provides for all types of care eligible through the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act, which includes but is not limited to:

  • Nursing services.
  • Coordination of service with your primary care physician.
  • Health status assessments.
  • Wound care and dressing.
  • Medication and injection management.
  • IV management.
  • Blood draws for lab work.
  • Pre-surgery preparation.
  • Post-operative care.
  • Nutritional counseling.
  • Patient education.
  • Housekeeping, laundry and hygiene help

The EEOICPA program does not currently cover any type of holistic or naturopathic care compensation, including chiropractic and/or acupuncture care. You as a patient are free to pursue these types of care, but the EEOICPA program will not compensate workers for the costs of these types of care.

Additional benefits for nuclear power plant workers, uranium miners and others who worked in the atomic weapons fields during the Cold War may be available under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). For more information on RECA, contact Haven Home Health Care staff or go to the government's RECA website.

RESEP, or the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program, helps individuals who live (or lived) in areas where U.S. nuclear weapons testing occurred.

RESEP was created as a part of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) amendments of 2000 to help thousands of individuals diagnosed with cancer and other diseases caused by exposure to nuclear fallout or nuclear materials such as uranium.

The program awards grants to health care providers in the 12 states most affected by the Cold War's nuclear weapons industry. The grantees serve radiation-exposed individuals and help them establish eligibility for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program.

RESEP, or the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program, helps individuals who live (or lived) in areas where U.S. nuclear weapons testing occurred.

RESEP was created as a part of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) amendments of 2000 to help thousands of individuals diagnosed with cancer and other diseases caused by exposure to nuclear fallout or nuclear materials such as uranium.

The program awards grants to health care providers in the 12 states most affected by the Cold War's nuclear weapons industry. The grantees serve radiation-exposed individuals and help them establish eligibility for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program.

Those who apply for the Energy Employees Program (EEOICPA) and are awarded benefits, are issued a white card with their accepted illnesses listed on the front. Similar to a standard insurance card, whenever you receive medical care related to an accepted illness, you will show the card to have the costs covered under the EEOICPA. The white card can cover a wide variety of medical services, including home nursing care.

  • Fees for our services are absorbed by the Department of Labor without co-pays or deductibles
  • We only employ licensed caregivers (RN, LPN's) - with the added benefit of physician oversight
  • Care is provided hourly to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
  • We manage paperwork and all documentation for submission
  • We work together with your local physician(s)


To find out more about receiving EEOICPA health care from Haven Home Health Care, you can contact us by phone or email.

Do You Know Someone We Could Help?

We are looking for current and former employees, subcontractors, retirees and surviving spouses or children from the following facilities:

The Hanford Nuclear Site is located in southeastern Washington State, in the town of Hanford located in Benton County. The site was originally established in 1943 to produce plutonium for the first nuclear bomb, which was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. Production slowed after the end of World War II, but increased again in 1947 to answer the demands of the Cold War. Nuclear technology developed rapidly during the following years. The Hanford site, which eventually boasted a 51,000 person workforce, worked to develop nine nuclear reactors and five plutonium processing complexes over a 586-mile parcel of land.

Originally home to several tribes of Native Americans, the land that hosts the Hanford Site filled with pioneers and settlers around the mid-1800s. Towns such as Hanford and nearby White Bluffs were formed to support surrounding farms and ranches, and the thriving small towns served many residents. In 1943, the government made a decision to relocate portions of the Manhattan Project to the Hanford Site, and residents of Hanford and White Bluffs were forced to abandon their homes and make a life elsewhere, receiving just a small stipend from the government as compensation to leave the homes and farms they had worked so hard to develop.

Only a minute number of workers at the Hanford Site knew what they were building or what the impact on the surrounding people and land would produce. Workers were told only that they were doing important war work; work that would benefit the security of America and its people. The majority of the employees at the Hanford Site had no idea that the work they were doing released significant amounts of radioactive materials into the air, land and into the Columbia River, due to what would later be defined as "inadequate waste disposal processes".

 

 

The Hanford Site would remain in operation until 1987, when the last nuclear reactor ceased operation. Decades of nuclear and plutonium production left solid and liquid wastes that posed imminent risk to the area and led to serious contamination of the Columbia River. In 1989, the Washington State Department of Ecology, along with the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, entered into what is now called the TPA, or Tri-Party Agreement, an agreement made that would be committed to the cleanup of the Hanford Site and surrounding affected areas, including the Columbia River.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is under the authority of the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and is located in Washington State. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory began official operations in 1965 and is still in operation today. PNNL's first mission was the research and development involved in relation to the manufacturing of nuclear energy. Early researchers at the PNNL were responsible for developing the standards and devices used for setting and measuring radiation doses received by nuclear workers. PNNL researchers continue to work today in the development of processes used to effectively cleanup hazardous waste and radioactive materials.

PNNL operated on property at the Hanford Site until the end of 2004, but eventually opened a separate facility in Richland, Washington. For purposes of the EEOICPA, PNNL is considered part of the Hanford Site for all employees who worked for PNNL through the end of 2004. Because of the long-running history and continued work at PNNL, EEOICPA claimants are eligible to file both Part B and Part E claims for compensation.

Since 1956, the plant now owned by ATI Wah Chang (formerly called the Wah Chang Corporation) has operated as a rare metals extraction facility, after the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) contracted with Wah Chang Corporation in 1956 to run the U.S. Bureau of Mines zirconium plant in Albany, Oregon. The Wah Chang Corporation produced not only zirconium, but hafnium, tantalum and niobium at the site as well. The production processes for these radioactive metals generated radioactive waste, which was subsequently leaked into the surrounding environment.

Wah Chang was deemed a Superfund site in 1983, when the Superfund (or CERCLA, which stands for Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act) deemed that the company's processes had contaminated nearby rivers.

From 1983 to 2002, ATI Wah Chang conducted clean-up me

The Albany Research Center, also known as the Northwest Electro-development Laboratory and the Albany Metallurgy Research Center was opened in 1943 in Albany, Oregon. The original use of the center was to find methods for using the abundant low-grade resources of the area and to develop new metallurgical processes using the wealth of electrical energy in the area.

Among the research projects at the Albany Research Center was the partnership with the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in the development of the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus. The Albany Research Center, in partnership with the AEC and other agencies, conducted experiments with radioactive materials from 1945 until 1978.

A radiological survey of the site was conducted in 1985, and findings concluded that portions of several buildings and exterior locations were determined as being in need of decontamination. Cleanup was conducted from 1987 to 1988, and again from 1990 to 1991. All hazardous waste material was sent to The Hanford Site for disposal. Although the Albany Research Center is still active, it no longer conducts experiments using radioactive material.

The Uranium Mill and Disposal Cell processing site is a former uranium-ore processing facility located in the town of Lakeview, Oregon, which is located approximately 16 miles north of the California-Oregon border. Uranium is used primarily for the development of nuclear power, and the uranium milling process used at the Lakeview site left radioactive tailings, which eventually contaminated nearby groundwater. No uranium ore was processed at the site after 1961.

Although the radiation hazards associated with uranium milling were largely unknown in the early years of uranium mining, subsequent studies of uranium miners led to the discovery that workers were indeed being exposed to high levels of radiation. The studies showed that intense inhalation of radon gas that uranium miners were subjected to could cause sharp increases of lung and other cancers in uranium miners. Shallow groundwater at the site area has been tested and has shown to have elevated concentrations of arsenic, boron, chloride, manganese, sodium, and sulfate. Although these concentrations have been shown to have originated from several sources, the Lakeview uranium site was deemed one culprit, and the Department of Energy (DOE) established controls to ensure protection of human health, including cleanup of the uranium tailings and continued monitoring of the groundwater at the site.

Operations at the Lakeview, Oregon site ceased in 1961, and from 1986 to 1988, the uranium tailing contaminants were removed from the site and placed in an engineered disposal cell, which is stored 7 miles northwest of Lakeview.

Amchitka is the largest and southernmost island of the Rat Islands group in the Aleutian Chain, located about 1,340 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska. Amchitka boasts roughly 74,240 acres, with a hilly landscape containing elevations that range from sea level to over 1,100 feet above sea level.

The U.S. military chose Amchitka Island to begin launching an assault on Japanese-owned Kiska Island, which is roughly 60 miles west of Amchitka, in 1943. Occupancy of Amchitka peaked at 15,000 troops, but military operations on the island ceased in 1945. The U.S. military abandoned the site in 1950, however the U.S. government's Atomic Energy Commission chose the site for testing of underground nuclear detonations. The government performed three tests at the Amchitka site, the first being performed in October 1965.

The first test, named Long Shot, was a nuclear detection research experiment in which the bomb was detonated at 2,300 feet below ground level. The second test, called Milrow, was detonated in October 1969 at a depth of 4,000 feet. The third test, called Cannikin, was performed in November of 1971 at a depth of 5,875 below ground surface. Environmental groups and citizens alike protested the experiments, fearing that the tests - namely the Cannikin test - would trigger earthquakes and tsunamis in nearby areas.

While fears of tsunamis and earthquakes went unrealized, fears of disease-producing contaminants did not. Because the concentrations of tritium detections in surface water were considered safe at 16,000 picocuries per liter (the U.S. EPA standard of safety is 20,000 picocuries per liter), and the monitoring of groundwater and surface water from 1965 to 2001 showed only decreasing levels of tritium, monitoring of the site ceased in 2001. However, employees working at Amchitka during the Atomic Energy Commission's testing years were exposed to tritium and other possible contaminants.

Therefore, employees who worked at Amchitka Island during the years of the testing of underground nuclear detonations are deemed eligible for EEOICPA care benefits under Part B of the EEOICPA (Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act).

Chariot, Alaska, harbor excavation plans, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy

The Chariot, Alaska site (known as "Project Chariot") was part of the Plowshare Program created in 1957 by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). A main purpose of the Plowshare Program, which was located in Chariot in the Cape Thompson area of the state, was to research the potential of using nuclear explosives to excavate a harbor. Project Chariot began in 1958, and conducted more than 40 pretest studies of the Cape Thompson area between 1959 and 1962. No nuclear detonations were ever conducted at Chariot for the purposes or excavation research, however a subsequent test did bring radioactive contaminants to the area.

Materials from a 1962 nuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site were transported in 1962 to the Chariot Site. These materials were used in several experiments and then buried. The materials remained buried until 1993, at which time a University of Alaska researcher, through the discovery of correspondence between the AEC and the U.S. Geological Survey, brought the news of the buried contaminants to media attention. Residents of nearby areas demanded removal of the radioactive contaminants, and the government removed them promptly.

  

Please help us help others get the compensation they deserve by referring other employees and/or surviving spouses or children of employees who worked for these or other Department or Energy Sites. All referrals are confidential. You can contact Haven Home Health Care with any referral information by clicking here.

Why choose Haven Energy and Labor as your trusted in-home care provider?

  • Fees for our services are completely absorbed by the Department of Labor under EEOICPA; clients pay no co-pays or deductibles
  • We only employ licensed caregivers (RN, LPN’s) – with the added benefit of physician oversight
  • Care is provided hourly to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
  • We manage paperwork and documentation for submission
  • We work together with your doctor(s)

We are experts at providing work-related home health care.

Were you employed in an area that supported the Cold War effort or nuclear armament? Or were you a direct employee, contractor, or subcontractor of the Department of Energy during the Cold War Era?