It was just announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation that a major change in the rules for administering DOT urine drug screens will become effective October 1, 2010. This rule changes all Federal and DOT testing from the present 5 Panel to a 7 Panel that will include MDKA (aka Ecstasy) as well as lowering the cutoff levels on Cocaine and Amphetamines.
This new rule will have a major impact on our industry. There will be policy changes within your company that will need attention. I am listing below a few items that your company needs to consider and address due to these changes in the regulations.
Human Resource Software
The Chain of Custody forms will need to be altered to affect this new change. The DOT will come forward with more information on this issue soon.
There will be additional costs as outlined in the Federal Register Notice that will come from the laboratory due to the increased testing required and the possible change to the COC Forms.
Your company HR Policy and recruiting policy will need to be addressed to cover the expansion of the additional drugs that have been added to the new DOT mandated test.
Many companies mirror the previous 5 panel testing for their Non-DOT testing, your company may want to make the change to now mirror the new 7 panel. If this change is not made, the labs will not be able to upgrade or downgrade results done on the wrong forms.
The positive rates that our industry has been experiencing with testing will increase. The lower cut-off levels for Cocaine and Amphetamines as well as additional testing for Heroin and Ecstasy will create a bigger net that will capture more drug abuse.
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