REUVEN BLAU
The New York Post

He never battled a blaze - but the Fire Department's heart doctor is in line for a lucrative disability pension meant for firefighters with job-related heart ailments.

Dr. Neil Coplan, a 20- year veteran of the department, was approved for the estimated $95,000-a- year pension under a state law that automatically awards cushy benefits to FDNY members whose heart illnesses could have resulted from years of inhaling toxic fire fumes.

His $127,497-a-year job isn't fighting blazes but treating firefighters injured by them. Only occasionally did the 55-year-old heart doctor visit major fire scenes.

But under state pension laws, any city police officer or firefighter who acquires a heart ailment is presumed to have acquired the disease on the job and is thus eligible for a special pension if heart troubles force retirement.

Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano is asking city lawyers to check the legality of the pension, questioning whether state law really gives doctors the same benefits as uniformed fire and police supervisors, FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon said.

Coplan was out of the country last week and unavailable to comment.

A panel of three doctors confirmed his heart-ailment diagnosis. The condition has not prevented Coplan from practicing medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital, where he's the director of the Division of Clinical Cardiology. Most FDNY doctors work 40-hour weeks but also maintain private practices.

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April 4, 2010