Drug Testing Consortium: How a Small NEMT Company Joins a Random Testing Pool

What a drug testing consortium is

DOT’s testing rules define a consortium/third-party administrator (C/TPA) as a service agent that provides or coordinates drug and alcohol testing services for employers and usually handles the paperwork of their programs (49 CFR 40.3). The term also covers groups of employers who join together to run their testing as one program. A C/TPA is never your “employer” under these rules, so it never takes on your legal duties.

Under the rules in part 40, subpart Q, a C/TPA may:

• Run your random program. It can put your drivers in a pool with other companies’ drivers and make the selections (49 CFR 40.347).
• Arrange the other tests. It can contract with collection sites and labs for pre-employment, post-accident, reasonable suspicion, return-to-duty, and follow-up tests.
• Supply a medical review officer, directly or by contract, as long as the officer works independently (49 CFR 40.353).
• Keep your records. That includes custody and control forms, pool lists, selection lists, and test results, with the same confidentiality and retention rules you follow (49 CFR 40.349 and 40.351).
• Prepare your yearly testing summary. A company official still has to certify it (49 CFR 382.403(e) and 655.72(g)).

For which of your drivers fall under DOT testing at all, and what brokers require from the rest, start with NEMT driver drug testing.

How a random pool works for a three-driver company

The rate applies to the pool, not to your company. FMCSA lets your drivers sit in a C/TPA’s larger pool, as long as the C/TPA tests that pool at the right rate (49 CFR 382.305(j)(2)). FTA lets a consortium count tests across all its members tested at the same rate (49 CFR 655.45(f)). For 2026, both minimums are 50 percent for drugs and 10 percent for alcohol: FMCSA’s rate has been 50 percent since January 1, 2020, and FTA confirmed its rates in a notice of January 15, 2026.

Here is how that plays out. Say you run three vans under a contract with a transit agency covered by FTA testing rules, so your drivers fall under them too (see ADA paratransit contractor). You join a consortium pool of 400 covered drivers that selects every quarter.

1. Across the year, the consortium must run at least 200 random drug tests and 40 random alcohol tests.
2. Each quarter it draws about 50 names for drugs. Each of your drivers has the same 50 in 400 chance, 12.5 percent, every draw.
3. In one year your company may see no random test at all, or the same driver picked twice. Both fit the rules.
4. When a name comes up, you tell the driver and your dispatcher moves that driver’s next trips to someone else. A selected driver must stop safety-sensitive work and go to the collection site immediately (49 CFR 655.45(h), and 382.305(l) for CDL drivers).

Three rules shape every pool:

• Only covered drivers, and all of them. Every covered driver must be in the pool, and no one else (49 CFR 382.305(j)(1)).
• DOT and non-DOT never mix. Employees outside DOT rules may not share a random pool with DOT-covered employees (49 CFR 40.347(b)(2)). If a broker requires random tests for van drivers who fall outside DOT rules, those drivers go in a separate non-DOT pool, and their tests may not use the DOT forms (49 CFR 40.13).
• Mixed DOT pools test at the highest rate. A pool that combines FMCSA and FTA employees must test at no less than the higher of the two rates (49 CFR 40.347(b)(1)).

An owner who drives a CDL vehicle must name a C/TPA in the Clearinghouse to handle reporting on the owner’s own tests (49 CFR 382.705(b)(6)). If the owner is the company’s only CDL driver, the owner must also be in a pool of two or more covered drivers (49 CFR 382.103(b)). For an owner who drives, the C/TPA may also decide when post-accident and suspicion tests are due and call a no-show a refusal (49 CFR 40.355(h) and (j)). See FMCSA Clearinghouse.

What stays your job

Using a C/TPA does not move your responsibility. If it fails to do the work the rules require, DOT can sanction you, and good-faith use of a service agent is no defense (49 CFR 40.15(c)). Some duties cannot be handed off at all:

• Your designated employer representative. Someone at your company must receive results and pull drivers from service. A service agent may never act as your designated employer representative (49 CFR 40.15(d) and 40.355(k)).
• Testing decisions. Whether to test after an accident, on reasonable suspicion, for return to duty, or for follow-up is your call. The C/TPA may advise you, but it may not decide (49 CFR 40.355(g)).
• Refusals. Apart from a refusal the medical review officer finds because a specimen was adulterated or substituted, only you decide that a driver refused a test (49 CFR 40.355(i) and (j)).
• Clearinghouse reporting. You stay responsible for your reports even when a C/TPA files them. The one exception is reporting on an owner’s own tests, which the owner’s C/TPA handles (49 CFR 382.705(c)).

The rules also protect your drivers. A C/TPA may not make a driver sign a consent, release, or waiver for any part of the testing process (49 CFR 40.355(a)). It may not share a driver’s results with another employer without that driver’s specific written consent, and blanket consent forms are not allowed (49 CFR 40.351).

The medical review officer behind each result

Every DOT drug result goes from the lab to a medical review officer before anyone else sees it. A C/TPA may not route lab results through its own system or send them straight to you (49 CFR 40.355(b) and (c)).

The medical review officer must be a licensed physician, a doctor of medicine or osteopathy, who completed qualification training, passed an exam from a nationally recognized certification board, and repeats the training and exam in each five-year period (49 CFR 40.121). You may ask for that documentation, and the officer must provide it to employers and C/TPAs who use or are negotiating to use their services (49 CFR 40.15(b) and 40.121(e)).

For a positive, adulterated, substituted, or invalid result, the officer must speak with the driver directly before deciding (49 CFR 40.131). Staff may only schedule that talk. If the driver cannot be reached after at least three tries over 24 hours, the officer asks your designated employer representative to tell the driver to call, without saying why. Once your representative reaches the driver, the driver has 72 hours to call the officer, or the result can be verified without the driver’s side (49 CFR 40.133). The driver carries the burden of showing a legitimate medical explanation, such as a valid prescription, and the officer may allow up to five more days to produce it (49 CFR 40.137). Only then does the verified result reach you.

What to ask a consortium before you sign

1. Which pools does it run? Ask whether it keeps separate FMCSA, FTA, and non-DOT pools, and which ones your drivers go in.
2. What rate does it test each pool at, and how often does it select? For broker work, compare that with your contract. MTM Health’s standard agreement asks for random testing at current FTA rates.
3. Will you see every selection list that names your drivers, with the date, so you can show an auditor or broker?
4. Who is the medical review officer, and will they send you their qualification documents?
5. Where are the collection sites near your service area, and what are the hours for drivers on early or late shifts?
6. Who reports to the Clearinghouse for your CDL drivers, and will it be named in your account?
7. What does a record transfer cost if you leave? The answer should be its reasonable administrative cost only.

Then write the consortium, the pools, and your designated employer representative into your written policy. The free NEMT drug and alcohol policy template has DOT and non-DOT versions.