July 13, 2001
Mr. Kenneth Edgell
Acting Director
Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy and Compliance
U.S. Dept. of Transportation
400 Seventh St., S.W.
Washington, DC 20590
Dear Ken:
An issue that DATIA included in its letter to you on April 9, 2001 regarding the soon-to-be implemented Drug and Alcohol regulations has moved to the forefront of our members’ concerns, and we would respectfully submit that it needs immediate consideration. It is the issue of the Consortium/Third Party Administrator (C/TPA) and employer’s address on the custody and control form (CCF). Since the Department of Transportation (DOT) has indicated that they will be issuing technical amendments to its CFR 49 Part 40 regulations, which become effective August 1, 2001, there is still time to address this crucial matter.
On April 9, in our letter submitted to you on suggested technical amendments, we wrote to you about the following issue:
“3. If the C/TPA is to receive the test results from the MRO, how is this indicated on the CCF? Can the CCF list the employer’s name and the C/TPA’s address, phone, and fax or must the MRO remember that the information is not to be sent to the employer’s address/fax on the CCF, but rather to the C/TPA? The most logical solution would be for the address and contact information on the CCF to be the actual entity that the MRO will need to contact with the test results. For record keeping purposes, the CCF should list the C/TPA name, the Employer name, and the C/TPA’s contact information.” [DATIA letter to DOT April 9, 2001].
The purpose of this letter is to further elaborate on this issue, and the reasons why change is needed. Our feedback is that 75-90% of our members currently list the C/TPA on the CCF since that is where the employer’s copy (blue form) of the CCF and test results needs to be sent.
We should also emphasize that this issue only exists for those companies who have designated a C/TPA to receive their paperwork and test results as part of their written contract. This would not affect the employers who did not choose to use a C/TPA for administrative services. But the far majority of small employers do use C/TPAs to handle just this type of paperwork burden on their behalf.
We would submit that the CCF should allow the C/TPA’s address to replace the employer’s address (as is current allowable practice and the industry standard), but still list the employer’s name because of the following reasons:
1. Most C/TPAs use the employer’s blue CCF as their primary and exclusive means to track tests, to know if a member’s employee has taken a required drug test, and to then look to match it with the MRO result. When a blue CCF comes into a C/TPA (from the collection site) and there is no test result from the MRO, then a C/TPA knows to begin tracking the “lost” test. Sometimes the member’s employee never took the test, which then needs to be reported, and at other times, the lab, MRO, or collection site made some type of mistake. But the blue CCF is the only means to know if a specimen was provided if there is a non-existent test result from the MRO. Without this blue CCF being received by the same entity as that which receives the test result, there will be no system to account for “lost” tests, and very little or no accountability, especially for small employers and owner-operators.
2. We have been told, as a potential solution, that there exists the option to list both the employer’s name and address, and the C/TPA name and address, in addition to the MRO’s name and address. This is impractical and unworkable for a few reasons. First, the collector will not clearly know who to send the employer’s copy to. There would be two addresses in the “employer’s” box. Because of the high volume and turnover at collection sites, it would be optimistic to say that collectors would get it right half the time; but probably less, because they would choose the local employer’s address as the actual employer – so that is where they would rationally think the employer’s copy should go. A much more practical issue is that both the employer’s and C/TPA’s address and phone will not fit the forms, which for the two largest labs only contain six lines total.
3. It is necessary to list the C/TPA’s address on the CCF because of billing and account information needed by the collection sites, labs, and MROs. With a C/TPA, who has thousands of members and utilizes hundreds of sites, each site will not know each member, but they will know XYZ consortium’s name for billing and identification purposes. Since many sites do not allow “walk-ins,” the name of the sponsoring C/TPA has to be listed or the unknown individual member will be turned away. This already happens on a frequent basis when members use blank forms that they sometimes have for post-accident purposes.
4. Quite simply, there is no stated reason in the DOT rulemaking suggesting why an employer needs to get the blue CCF if they choose not to. Such a practice would have no stated or proven “benefit,” but would have a cost. Most employers who use a C/TPA would find this a bother, and throw it away. If the employer designates the C/TPA to receive and maintain all paperwork, including test results and statistical summaries, it would only make sense for the blue CCF to also go to the C/TPA.
5. Timely and accurate receipt of the blue CCF by the C/TPA that receives the test results is necessary because of a key provision contained in 40.349 as follows: “What records may a service agent receive and maintain? (e) You must ensure that you can make available to the employer within two days any information the employer is asked to produce by a DOT agency representative.” Since the CCFs containing both the employer’s address and the C/TPA’s address would likely be misdirected to the employer directly in many cases, the C/TPA would not often be able to fulfill its obligations under 40.349 and would be of little value to the DOT agency representative of the employer.
In our view, this issue might have been left over from when the DOT first proposed to require MROs to send test results directly to employers. Naturally, it would follow that employers should get the blue CCF. However, since the test-result reporting process was changed by DOT in the final rule, the CCF process should reflect this change. In summary, we would propose the following address block be allowed for those employers who contractually use a C/TPA to receive test results:
Employer’s Name and Account Info
c/o C/TPA’s Name and Account Info
C/TPA Address
C/TPA City State Zip
C/TPA Telephone and Fax
Ken, we would request the opportunity to meet with you on this issue before August 1, if possible. I will follow-up on this letter with a call, and I look forward to a positive dialogue on this issue of utmost importance to our members.
Sincerely,
 |
Laura E. Norfolk
Executive Director
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