Don’t know how to find a drug testing center?

Following up on her January 8th guest post, Drug Testing Methods, Lena Butler shares her latest guest post on how to find a federally certified or accredited drug testing center. Lena is a health blogger and customer service representative for TestCountry, a San Diego based point of service diagnostic test service provider that offers a wide range of laboratory and instant drug and general health testing kits.

How to Find a Federally Certified or Accredited Drug Testing Center by Lena Butler

Not just any laboratory can perform drug testing or drug testing confirmation. Prior to being able to do either of these things, labs must receive accreditation or certification from one of three federal organizations that are capable of certifying either labs within the USA or labs outside of the US that want to be able to perform drug testing according to standards set in the US.

Before we look at how to find a drug testing center, let’s look at who actually certifies these places.

Bodies that issue certification to drug testing centers

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS); the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) are the three federal bodies that issue certification for drug testing centers in the US or foreign centers that test to American standards.

In addition to these three federal organizations, each state has its own accreditation program for drug testing centers, as well as some municipalities.

Department of Health and Human Services

The DHHS issues certification for both domestic and foreign laboratories and Instrumented Initial Testing Facilities. Labs have to meet the Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing in order to achieve DHHS certification. The DHHS sets these standards, but accreditation is handled by SAMHSA.

Any laboratories that have attained DHHS accreditation are permitted to perform drug testing for federal agencies, including the Department of Transportation.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

As previously mentioned, SAMHSA is an agency that belongs to the DHHS and holds the responsibility of certifying drug testing laboratories that comply with applicable standards for conducting federally regulated urine drug testing.

SAMHSA runs the National Laboratory Certification Program (NLCP). As part of this program, labs undergo performance testing and laboratory inspections. To test the performance of these labs, SAMHSA sends three rounds of urine specimens to be tested for drugs. If the lab successfully tests all the samples and their results mesh with SAMHSA’s results, the lab is eligible for certification.

At the time the third set of test samples are being tested by the lab, SAMHSA also performs an inspection on the lab. Labs are inspected again 3 months after achieving certification and in order to maintain certification, a laboratory must participate in and pass SAMHSA’s ongoing performance testing program and inspections.

The NLCP designation applies only to urine drug testing, and only for testing the drugs marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, opiates, and phencyclidine. The designation does not include evaluation or assessment of a laboratory’s capabilities for testing other drugs.

College of American Pathologists

CAP accreditation is internationally recognized and can be obtained by laboratories and testing centers that perform confirmation drug testing on urine, oral fluid, and hair for non-medical purposes. A non-medical purpose would be something like workplace drug testing.

How to find an accredited or certified drug testing center

Visit SAMHSA > Certified Lab List to find HHS-certified laboratories who may conduct drug testing for federal agencies and specific federally regulated industries.