… \u00a0A company representative from the Human Resource approaches you as a drug testing C\/TPA and would like you to conduct drug testing on their employees<\/strong>.\u00a0 They tell you that your were selected from the yellow pages on the phone book.\u00a0 You and company HR Representative quickly agree on a meeting date and time to discuss the areas of concern. C\/TPA is a consortium and third party administrator for employer drug testing programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several thoughts go through your mind but you need to ask the calling party about their regulatory status. One of the primary questions should be to see if they are regulated or not. At the meeting you can ask what their principle line of business is. With that answer, you make a determination that they are indeed not regulated. The company is large and with a variety of businesses that are owned or operated by this company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You inquire further and find out this company would like to institute drug testing for their employees. You ask several more questions. You quickly determine why they want to do testing and that this company has several profitable business lines. They state that they have over 1,000 employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You talk to the HR person and it is indicated that they would like a 10 panel drug test with recognized cutoff levels. The panel includes marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, opiates, Phencyclidine, Barbiturates, Benzodiazepines, propoxyphene, methadone and Quaaludes. The HR person gives approval for this testing panel which will utilize urine as the specimen source. You have talked to them about the potential benefits of and minuses of using oral fluid or hair as specimen sources. They elect to go with urine specimen testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next step is to determine the cutoff levels<\/a><\/strong> that will be used for both screening and confirmation testing.\u00a0 You give the HR person the various options and explain what is meant by screening and confirmation testing as testing should be two-step process.\u00a0 The HR person accepts the levels as you have explained to her and plus how long the various drug can last in the human body after use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The HR person inquires what happens if somebody should test positive and is taking a prescription drug.\u00a0 You explain that all tests results will go directly from the lab to the Medical Review Officer (MRO).<\/a><\/strong> \u00a0The HR person looks you and asks \u201cWhat is a Medical Review Officer?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n You take the time to patiently explain who and what a Medical Review Officer (MRO) is and their role in the drug test results verification. Some questions arise regarding confidentiality of the test results and you again answer those questions emphasis on the only designated personnel can handle drug test results and how they can be handled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The HR representative inquires about how the specimens will be collected and where they will be collected. There is a look of relief as it is realized that the HR Department will not have to collect the specimens but that trained personnel would do the specimen collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n