Ask X3What does 49 CFR 40.167 (How are MRO reports of drug results transmitted to the employer?) require?
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As your fleet-compliance assistant, here is what 49 CFR 40.167 requires for transmitting drug test results to the employer:
* Maintain Confidentiality: You must report all results in a confidential manner, ensuring the security of the transmission and limiting access to any transmission, storage, or retrieval systems.
* Urgent Results Timeline: For verified positive results, results requiring an immediate direct-observation collection, adulterated or substituted specimens, and other refusals to test, you must transmit them to the Designated Employer Representative (DER) on the same day the Medical Review Officer (MRO) verifies the result or by the next business day.
* Method for Urgent Results: Direct telephone contact with the DER is the preferred method for immediate reporting, which must be followed up with appropriate documentation. When calling, you must identify yourself, and the DER must have a way to confirm your identity.
* Standard Results Timeline: You must transmit reports of verified tests so the DER receives them within two days of the MRO's verification.
* Accepted Transmission Formats: You can fax, courier, mail, or electronically transmit a legible image or copy of either the signed/stamped and dated Copy 2 or the written report. However, negative results reported electronically via a computer data file do not require an image of Copy 2 or the written report.
* Required Content and Integrity: The transmitted report must contain all information required by § 40.163, and nobody other than the MRO is permitted to modify or change the reports.