Over the past five years, there has been significant changes in the way employers order, schedule and receive drug test results. The process has greatly improved with an online portal for the management of your drug testing program.
With an online portal, you can log into your account and order the drug test for your employee or candidate. The test can be ordered for fulfillment at a patient service center (PSC) operated by Quest Diagnostics or LabCorp. The system sends an e-mail order form or donor pass to the individual to be tested. The employee or candidate can then go to the Quest Diagnostics or LabCorp scheduling website and schedule an exact day and time for the drug screen collection.
The online portal will provide you with status updates such as the specimen has been collected, the specimen has been received by the lab and the lab has sent the lab results to the Medical Review Officer (MRO). Once the final results are available after review and verification by the MRO, the employer can see the results in the online portal and the system can send the result via e-mail to the employer.
eCCF – Electronic Custody & Control Form
With the online portal and electronic ordering, this process replaces the 5-part carbonless custody and control (CCF) forms previously used. Much less paper is involved in the new process. There are less mistakes and the information is much more accurate. You are not relying on someone’s handwriting to correctly write a person’s first or last name. See this short video on the use of electronic custody and control forms instead of the old method of the 5-part paper carbonless forms.
Quest Diagnostics describes eCCF as “An electronic Custody and Control Form (eCCF) is the digital version of the traditional, five-part paper Custody and Control Form — the document used for drug test ordering, specimen collection processing, and chain of custody documentation for workplace drug testing.” The use of the paperless drug testing form has greatly improved the drug testing process for employers. In the past it was very frustrating not knowing if the employee or candidate actually showed up for the drug screen collection. With the online portal eCCF status updates become available. Also frustrating was when the drug test result report came in and the employee or candidate name was spelled incorrectly. This happened because the data entry person could not read the handwriting of the collector who recorded the donor name on the paper CCF form.
With eCCF and a web-based platform for drug testing management, the employer has much more control over the drug testing process. It takes a few more minutes up front (5 minutes or less) to order the drug test but much less time on the back end chasing down errors, mistakes and misspellings. A good web-based platform for drug testing management will include integrations with the lab and medical review officers (MRO) so the employer can receive results real time as they are reviewed and verified by the MRO. 90% of negative results from the lab should be available on the web portal and back to the employer the next day after the specimen collection. So, with eCCF you get results back quicker so you can get the candidate to work.
Since 2015, eCCF has been approved by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) for DOT drug testing programs. The DOT often refers to eCCF as electronic Chain of Custody or eCOC.
Collection sites that want to accept eCCF orders should contact www.formfox.com to be set up as an electronically enabled collection site. Using FormFox will greatly improve the efficiency at the collection site. Collection flaws will be reduced significantly. Becoming electronically enabled will also increase drug testing business for the collection site.
Benefits of eCCF and Online Portal
Bottom line there are significant advantages to a web based online portal for employer drug testing. Combined with eCCF, the benefits include:
- Saving time
- Reduce Costs
- Less Paperwork
- Online status
- Fewer handwritten errors
- Fewer collection site errors
- Faster turnaround time
- Real time updates
- Tracking of the entire process
- Greater data security
- Easy to manage random drug testing and consortiums
At National Drug Screening, we offer a robust online drug testing management program to our employer clients. We take the time to train our employer clients to use the system which is extremely user friendly. Learn more about our online web-based drug testing portal for employers.
