Employer Screening Solutions.

According to the National Safety Council, employees who abuse prescription drugs are two to five times more likely to take unexcused absences, be late for work, be injured or violent at work, file workers’ compensation claims, and quit or be fired within one year of employment. Employment drug screening helps employers maintain a safer, more productive workplace and:

Ensure a safer, more productive workplace with pre-employment and employee drug screening.

1 WRITTEN POLICY
Before you can purchase drug screening services, your organization needs to have a written drug screening policy in place. Identify any federal and state laws with which you must comply.

2 NOTICE
Before running an Employment Drug Screening Program, you must inform the candidate or employee. The notification must stand alone and cannot be hidden within an employment application.

3 TESTING
Candidates and employees provide a urine sample at the testing facility. To lessen the risk of false-positives, we encourage the candidate to keep a record of any prescriptions of drugs they are currently taking.

4 MEDICAL REVIEW
Results are reviewed by a Medical Review Officer (MRO), who is specially trained to interpret test results for the highest accuracy. In the event of a positive test result, an MRO is responsible for taking all reasonable and necessary steps to verify the medical records provided by the candidate; if applicable, notifying the pharmacy to verify the legitimacy of the prescription; and, if necessary, contacting the candidate’s treating physician.

5 RESULTS
Both the employer and candidate can review the results within 2-5 days of the test. The candidate will only be notified if there is an alert (i.e., a positive result) on the test.

6 ACTION
If the results of a Drug Screening Test Result, prompts a decision to deny employment, the employer should defer to the company’s written drug policy about handling a candidate’s failed drug test.

Types of Drug Tests

Currently there are two main options for drug testing: Instant and Lab Based Drug Test.

Instant drug test
An instant drug test is exactly as its name implies—you get the results right away, at the point where it's collected, usually within a few minutes. It's what we call an immunoassay screening; its purpose is to detect any presence of drugs in the specimen. The result is either negative (it's not present) or non-negative (it is present). An instant drug test can't officially give a "positive" result.

Lab based drug test
Lab-based drug tests are more accurate. We like to say they are more rigorous, more involved, and more defensible in a court of law, all of which are elements certain organizations must consider, particularly heavily regulated industries, like the DOT.

When we say lab-based testing is "more involved," here's what we mean:
The lab will conduct an initial screening to determine if the specimen is clean of any drugs or if it has some type of drug metabolite in it. If the answer is yes to the drug metabolite, then the lab runs it through a more advanced process to confirm what the drug is, it will specifically identify the chemical makeup and the quantity.

Another layer of rigor comes with the Medical Review Officer (MRO). The DOT defines an MRO as a person who is a licensed physician and who is responsible for receiving, reviewing laboratory results and evaluating medical explanations for certain drug test results.

Drug Tests are commonly used for five categories of drugs:

Reasons for Drug Testing

Random Tests

Pre-employment

Annual Physical Tests

For-cause and Reasonable Suspicion Tests

Post-accident Tests

Post-treatment Tests