National Qualified Collector Registry -- National drug and alcohol testing collection site registry -- CollectorRegistry.com

As of January 31, 2003 each person, conducting a drug test collection for any employer following federal guidelines, must be qualified in accordance with federal rules (49 C.F.R. Part 40). The rules call for proper training and documentation. There have been many reported cases throughout the country of employees who have tested positive for illicit drug use, but get their job back, because the collector was not qualified, or did not have proof that they were. This can be very costly to the employer, their TPA and to the collector.

The new rules preclude employers or their TPA from relying upon any assurance by collectors that they are in compliance. Federal rules state that "an employer's good faith use of a collector that is not qualified is no excuse and cannot serve as a defense to an enforcement action by DOT, or in an action by a former applicant or employee." The rules require collectors to produce written documentation of qualifications upon request.

Many large employers, who self administer their testing programs, are at a loss as to how to be certain they have contracted with collectors that are properly qualified. That is, of course, without spending an extremely large portion of their total drug and alcohol testing budgets, auditing and maintaining up-to-date documentation of each collector at each collection site. Virtually all employers using third party administrators expect their TPA to handle the problem. Most TPAs however, have been struggling with finding a cost effective method of ensuring that the required documentation is collected and maintained.

Some employers and TPAs are merely calling their collection sites or asking them to sign a letter stating that their collectors have been trained. In our view, this type of solution is essentially a "good faith" reliance that the collector is qualified and, as was pointed out above, should not be substituted for actually gathering appropriate documentation. Should the need arise; litigators will feel far more comfortable being able to put their hands on a piece of paper documenting a collector's qualifications.

Since October 2002 Collection Site Audit Services, a service of the Law Offices of William J. Judge, has conducted hundreds of collection site audits and found many of those reviewed not qualified. Combine that with an extremely high turnover rate among collectors and it is easy to see that keeping up with collector qualifications is a difficult task for employers and their program administrators. That is why this website -- National Qualified Collector Registry ("NQCR") at www.CollectorRegistry.com -- has been developed.

There is no charge for access to individual collector qualification documentation. NQCR records are organized by "Registered Collection Site". The exact street address and city name are required to retrieve documentation for all the qualified collectors at a given location. Records may be printed online or saved to your computer for future reference.

Thank you for visiting the Registry. Successful NQCR registration means that the qualifications of a Collection Site's collector personnel have been audited by the Law Offices of William J. Judge. Documentation of those qualifications is posted here on the Registry for access by any and all employers, their agents, and/or any government agency requesting such records.