Navigating Labs for your Drug-Testing Program

National Drug Screening, Inc (NDS) is excited to sponsor the Inside Drug Screening column in The Background Buzz for 2024. It is our intent to educate the background screening industry on important news, information and trends about drug screening. Our focus will be on workplace drug testing and each month we will feature a specific drug testing topic followed by any recent news, information and trends. These back to the basics drug testing topics will help your teams better understand drug testing and to help grow your drug testing revenue.

Learn some of your options with the major laboratories offering drug testing in the United States.

There are multiple options background-screening providers can utilize to find laboratories that provide drug testing for their employer clients. We will discuss some of those options in this article. Some of your relationships might be directly with these labs, or some may be from your partner software providers such as TazWorks, Accio Data, Deverus, ClearStar, i3screen or others. Understanding the lab partner’s capabilities is critical to the success of your drug-screening operation.

Ask your partner software providers whom they are connected with to offer you drug testing and other occupational health services you might want to offer.

Also important is the function of the medical review officer (MRO) for your drug-testing business. The MRO helps you provide compliant and legally defensible drug-test results.

Let’s discuss some of the major labs certified by SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Alere Toxicology – Alere, owned by Abbott Toxicology, provides DOT and non-DOT drug- testing solutions. The e-Screen platform for ordering drug testing primarily uses Alere as their lab because e-Screen is also owned by Abbott Toxicology. When using Alere directly or through the e-Screen platform, the collection site network is the e-Screen comprehensive alliance of clinic partners. Rapid and lab testing are both available along with electronic ordering and electronic receipt of drug-testing results from the e-Screen proprietary MRO service, which operates under the Abbott umbrella.

Note that the e-Screen system also allows the ordering and fulfilling of occupational health services, including physicals, vaccinations, TB tests, and the complete Health-eScreen® menu of products and services.

Alere Toxicology has two certified labs. One is in Gretna, Louisiana, and the other is in Richmond, Virginia. eScreen is a technology-enabled Third-Party Administrator (TPA).

Clinical Reference Laboratory (CRL) – Offering both DOT and non-DOT drug testing, CRL has a network of contracted collection sites in its Workforce system of nationwide clinics providing electronic drug-testing collections for the FormFox system. FormFox-enabled clinics can also provide CRL customers with a variety of occupational health services, including physicals. There are several MRO services connected to the CRL Workforce system, making the reporting of results nearly seamless.

It is important that the FormFox application for electronic collections (eCCF) allows for specimen collection from other major labs such as Quest or LabCorp, and FormFox has an ordering system to place drug-test orders.

CRL laboratory is located in Lenexa, Kansas. Urine based and oral fluid drug testing available from CRL.

LabCorp – Also offering both DOT and non-DOT drug testing, LabCorp has SAMHSA- certified labs in Portland, Oregon; Houston, Texas; Raritan, New Jersey; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and Southaven, Mississippi. LabCorp also owns MedTox laboratories located in St. Paul, Minnesota. LabCorp offers urine testing and oral-fluid testing. Hair testing is also available through LabCorp utilizing affiliated labs.

Various MRO services can be used with LabCorp, an electronic ordering system as well eCCF is available. LabCorp operates an internal network of over 1100 specimen- collection facilities called patient service centers (PSC) and also works with third-party collection facilities throughout the United States offering specimen collections at thousands of facilities nationwide.

LabCorp has integrations that connect with most major software systems available for background check providers.

Quest Diagnostics – With a large lab in Lenexa, Kansas, Quest provides urine, hair and oral-fluid drug testing. Quest operates over 1100 collection sites know as patient service centers (PSCs). Quest also maintains a network of more than 3700 secondary collection sites known as the Preferred Provider Network. These are private collection sites under contract to provide Quest specimen collections and are also part of the e-Screen comprehensive alliance of clinic partners. Quest also lists more than 1700 third-party collection facilities.

Quest offers eCCF collections at PSC and PPN locations and also maintains integrations with various MRO service organizations and most major software systems.

Quest is well known for its Drug Test Index, which is published annually. This publication provides statistical analysis of positivity rates for workplace drugs tested by Quest Diagnostics on behalf of employers.

Where Do You Go From Here?

A background-check provider may want to work with one or more of the above-listed labs either directly or through integrations available from your partner software providers such as TazWorks, Accio Data, Deverus, ClearStar, i3screen or others. National Drug Screening (NDS) also offers a comprehensive Reseller Program that includes lab services, MRO, and software. Additional education and consultation are also available from NDS.