We had a female come in to take a NON-DOT pre-employment test for one of our regular customers. The specimen she produced was out of temperature range. When the collector informed her that the specimen did not meet our criteria the donor asked if she could come back later and test again, our collector informed her only if the employer allows it and is willing to issues her a new request for testing form. A very few employers allow donors to re-test even after we release a refusal to test to them. Federal regulation does not allow this practice for employees who fall under any of the DOT modes.

We immediately reported the test as a refusal to the employer with the following notes attached to the result letter:

Refusal to test: Donor gave out of range sample and was given 16oz of H2o. She said she had a 2:30pm appointment to make and left the collection site.

The donor told her potential future employer that we said she could come back and re-test. The employer refused to issue her a new test order and said if we would allow her to re-test then she would trust our judgement.

When the donor arrived at our clinic without a new request for testing document our collector informed her that we had already released the original test as a refusal and therefore we could not do another test without a new request for testing form from her employer.

The donor became upset, and management was called in to talk to her. She explained how desperately she needed this job, poured on the tears, and did her best to convince management to allow her to retest. BTW she had a very strong smell of marijuana while she turned on the drama. The donor insisted that our collector said she could return to retest and never told her the test would be reported as a refusal. Management stuck to its guns and would not allow her to retest. As soon as the donor realized management was not going to “give in” the tears went away, and the “poor me” attitude change to hateful as she stormed out the door.

It is the donor’s responsibility to know that leaving a collection site without producing a specimen the collector will accept is a refusal and has the same consequences as a positive. The circumstances as to why the donor chose to leave, or what a collector says or doesn’t say to the donor, has no bearing on the outcome.

Allow First Choice to service your drug testing needs and trust us to protect your interest; just as this long time customer did.