July 11, 2008
Did you know...?
Final Rule on Specimen Validity Testing from the Department of Transportation (DOT), Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy & Compliance (ODAPC)
The Department of Transportation is amending certain provisions of its drug and alcohol testing procedures to change instructions to collectors, laboratories, medical review officers, and employers regarding adulterated, substituted, diluted, and invalid urine specimen results. These changes are intended to create consistency with specimen validity requirements established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and to clarify and integrate some measures taken in two of DOT's Interim Final Rules. This Final Rule makes specimen validity testing mandatory within the regulated transportation industries.
Procedures for Transportation Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing Programs
In summary:
1. This Final Rule makes it mandatory for laboratories to test all DOT specimens for specimen validity (i.e., adulterants and urine substitutes) and for
laboratories to follow all Department of Health and Human Resources (HHS) protocols for doing so.
2. Observed collections will afford less privacy in order to guard against employee use of items designed specifically to beat the testing process.
a. Directly observed collections will continue to occur only when there is a specific reason to believe that an employee may be attempting, or have sufficient reason, to evade the testing process.
b. Items such as prosthetic devices designed to carry clean urine will be checked for by observers with both male and female donors. The observer will have the employee raise and lower clothing, and then put it back into place for the observed collection.
c. Observed collections will now be required, rather than optional, for all return-to-duty and follow-up drug testing.
3. In an effort to thwart those who would manufacturer products designed to adulterate specimens, the Final Rule will no longer have easy-to-follow tables and charts outlining the adulterants for which laboratories are testing and the scientific cutoff levels at which laboratories are testing them.
4. Definitions in the Final Rule have been changed to harmonize with the HHS.
5. During an invalid result Medical Review Officer (MRO) review, an employee admission of adulterating or substituting a specimen is now a refusal to test.
6. Pursuant to MRO requests, the Final Rule will close the potentially endless loop on invalid specimen results; and employees requiring negative results [for example, pre-employment tests], when they have medical reasons for providing invalid results, will be able to obtain them through medical evaluations to rule out signs and symptoms of drug use.
7. The Final Rule will also streamline and simplify the potential myriad of complicated laboratory-confirmed and MRO-verified drug test results.
8. The Final Rule requires drug testing laboratories to report to DOT semi-annual statistical summaries on all of their DOT testing.
9. The Final Rule effective date is August 25, 2008.
To view/download the Final Rule, please visit the following web page: http://www.dot.gov/ost/dapc/frpubs.html.
OHS-COMPCARE follows the DOT collection process for non DOT collections unless otherwise directed by the employer. If you do not want us to follow this change for your employees and have not already give us alternative instructions for you collection process please call our client services department at 816-561-2105 (option 1).
*Please feel free to forward this information to any member of management in your company who would benefit from it.*
We now offer the Tip of the Week in Spanish. To view the Tip of the Week in Spanish please visit our Tip of the Week library at http://www.ohscompcare.com/totw/. Please allow a few days for the current Tip of the Week to be translated and placed in to the library.
To learn more about
services OHS-COMPCARE has to offer, contact our Client Services
Team at (816) 561-2105 option 1 or by e-mail at customerservice@ohscompcare.com. You can also visit us at www.ohscompcare.com.
Why choose us? Because OHS-COMPCARE offers a Certified Drug and Alcohol Collector who will perform collections at the clinical facility, the employers worksite or at the designated Hospital Emergency Department.
OHS-COMPCARE has eight (8) area clinical facilities:
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Blue Springs Clinical Facility |
Independence Clinical Facility |
Johnson County Clinical Facility |
St. Joseph Clinical Facility |
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801 NW St. Mary’s Drive |
19000 E. Eastland Center Crt, St. 200 |
10415 Lackman Road |
904 Edmond Street |
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Blue Springs, MO 64104 |
Independence, MO 64055 |
Lenexa, KS 66219 |
St. Joseph, MO 64501 |
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816-224-9121 |
816-478-9299 |
913-495-9905 |
816-233-7702 |
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After Hours Available |
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KCMO/Broadway Clinical Facility |
KCMO/Front Street Clinical Facility |
Wyandotte County Clinical Facility |
Grandview Clinical Facility |
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1650 Broadway |
6501 East Commerce, Suite 110 |
1333 Meadowlark Lane, Suite 200 |
13830 S Us Highway 71 |
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Kansas City, MO 64108 |
Kansas City, MO 64120 |
Kansas City, KS 66102 |
Grandview, MO 64030 |
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816-842-2020 |
816-483-5550 |
913-596-2774 |
816-761-4664 |