We receive a lot of calls from our clients regarding Substance Abuse Program in DOT Drug Testing and on how to stay DOT Safety compliant. When a driver is found positive or, a driver slated to be hired was found with a violation. When a driver is found to have a violation (positive or refusal), here are the suggested steps he needs to go through:
- Send the driver to a SAP, Substance Abuse Professional, and have a session.
- The SAP will do the following:
- Have the driver go through a training session (video and discussion)
- He will also give him a plan that will suggest doing one Return to Duty test followed by more drug tests within a certain period of time. These tests are called Follow Up tests. We strongly suggest our clients to keep a copy of the SAP plan in their record
- The SAP will do the following:
- After the SAP completes his session and delivers the plan, the company needs to do the following:
- Send the driver for a RTD test through IPS
- Upont receiving the RTD report from IPS, it needs to be uploaded to the Clearinghouse
- After Clearinghouse reporting of negative RTD, the driver reaches a status of “Not Prohibited to Drive“
- After RTD,
- Driver needs to be sent to complete ALL SAP Follow Up tests within the time period indicated in the SAP plan
- After the last SAP report is obtained, it needs to be uploaded to the Clearinghouse. This indicates the completion of SAP plan and it will show up in the query.
Please note that
- Send drivers to ALL RTD and Follow Up tests with “Collect Under Observation“. This is per DOT rule.
- You should get the SAP plan from the driver or SAP and save it in your records
Useful Links:
- Services offered by IPS here https://www.ipsdrugtesting.com
- For more information on SAP plan, please click here https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/drug-alcohol-testing/substance-abuse-professionals