O
n January 23, 2017, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA) published the final rule for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs. As expected, there are several changes that impact the drug and alcohol testing industry.
Who is Covered? The mandatory guidelines apply to executive agencies of the federal government, the uniformed services (except certain members of the armed forces), and contractors or service providers under contract with the federal government (except for the postal service and employing units in the judicial and legislative branches). Although the guidelines only apply to federal employees, many state and local governments have adopted similar programs under state laws and drug-free workplace programs.
Impact on Service Agents Te new guidelines affect all service agents for drug and alcohol testing programs in one way or another. One of the most notable changes is the addition of Schedule II drugs, like Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Hydrocodone, and Hydromorphone for those using urine for drug testing. Additionally, methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDEA) has been removed, while methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA) has been added.
Impact on Medical Review Officers For Medical Review Officers (MROs), there are a couple of issues that require close attention, including continuing education. Continuing education for
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MROs has been an issue off and on for a few years. For now, the requirements for continuing education will remain with the MRO certification entities and, therefore, are not included in the guidelines. However, HHS did include the requirement that MROs should receive training on revisions to the guidelines and require such training prior to the effective date of the revised guidelines. At a minimum, the MRO must complete requalification training on topics included in the guidelines, and pass an examination administered by a nationally recognized entity every five years from initial certification.
New Practices Pertaining to Gender Identification Under the new guidelines, a donor’s “gender identity” will be determined by his or her “internal sense of being male or female, which may be different from an individual’s sex at birth.” On a direct or monitored collection, a donor must acknowledge his or her gender identify on the custody and control form (CCF) and initial the annotation. Aſterward, the collector/observer must do the same. Since the donor’s gender is determined by their gender identity, a monitored collection must be performed by a collector of the same gender identity, or a licensed medical professional, and a direct-observed collection must be observed by a person with the same gender identity. If the observer is not a collector, he or she must be trained on direct observation procedures prior to serving as an observer.
Authorized Specimen Types The guidelines allow federal agencies to use an alternative specimen type (e.g. oral fluid) in their programs, but only after a donor is unable to
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As expected, there are several changes that impact the drug and alcohol testing industry.
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