Last updated : December 16, 2024
The National Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse Defined: What Employers Need to Know
What and Why?
First and foremost, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Clearinghouse was created for SAFETY! It is one of the ways the Department of Transportation (DOT) is attempting to keep our roadways safer by striving to keep commercial driver’s license (CDL) drivers and drivers with commercial learner’s permits (CLPs) drug-free. An act of Congress directed the Secretary of Transportation to establish the Clearinghouse. It is an online national database that will track CDL drivers’ drug and alcohol program violations in real-time, such as positive drug tests, alcohol tests above .040, consuming alcohol on the job or within four hours of performing a safety-sensitive function, using alcohol within eight hours of a post-accident alcohol test, refusing to test, and actual knowledge of a violation.
How will it keep our roadways safer?
- Employers are currently required to request drug and alcohol testing records from a driver’s previous employer. While attempts are made, the records are frequently not sent. The Clearinghouse will eliminate this problem, as employers can go directly to the database to retrieve records.
- The Clearinghouse will make it harder for drivers to conceal program violations. For example, if a driver has a positive pre-employment drug or alcohol test and doesn’t get the job, that result may not be recorded anywhere (or passed on), and the driver may apply at another company or in another state, and their record doesn’t follow them.
- It will ensure that drivers who have program violations receive proper treatment before performing safety-sensitive functions, satisfying the SAP program and the return-to-duty process.
- It will help the FMCSA determine if employers are being compliant as far as reporting violations as well as performing queries on the existing employees (see below regarding queries).
When?
The Clearinghouse must be used by employers and drivers beginning Jan. 6, 2020. Note that until Jan. 6, 2023, employers must still manually request records from a prospective employee’s former employer in addition to reporting violations in the database.
What do I need to do next?
- Register your company on the Clearinghouse site now
- Make sure your employees are also registered AND that they give you consent (within the database) to allow you to query their records
- On Jan. 6, 2020:
- Report drug and alcohol program violations, return-to-duty test results, and successful completion of follow-up testing*
- Purchase a query package
- Query the records of all prospective employees
- Query your employees’ records once a year to make sure they don’t have any violations (such as if they hold another CDL job)
- Understand that your collectors must now ask employees for their driver’s license number instead of their social security number to use as the ID on the chain of custody form when conducting drug and alcohol testing
*As an existing client, select USA Mobile Drug Testing of Northeast Ohio as your C/TPA (Third-Party Administrator) within the Clearinghouse database so that we can report program violations on your behalf as well as help advise you and ease your way as you navigate through the process!
If you have additional questions about the DOT Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, feel free to contact us.
