• Employers, consortium/third-party administrators, medical review officers, and substance abuse professionals are responsible for reporting specific information to the Clearinghouse.
• Only violations occurring after January 6, 2020, must be reported.

Motor carriers are not solely responsible for reporting all drug and alcohol violations to the Clearinghouse. Reporting is a shared responsibility among employers (and/or the company’s service agents), medical review officers (MROs), and substance abuse professionals (SAPs). Note that violations occurring before January 6, 2020, must NOT be reported to the Clearinghouse.

Only violations occurring under a motor carrier’s Part 382 program qualify to be reported to the Clearinghouse. Violations occurring under another Department of Transportation (DOT) agency are not provided to the database. In addition, non-DOT test results cannot be reported to the Clearinghouse.

Motor carriers are responsible for reporting the following test results or violations by the close of the third business day following the date on which the information was obtained:

• Alcohol confirmation test results of 0.04 or greater;
• Refusals to take an alcohol test (40.261);
• Refusals to take a drug test where the MRO is not involved in making the determination, as listed below (i.e., employers must report refusals to test as described in 40.191(a)(1) through (4), (a)(6), (a)(8) through (11), or (d)(1) (but in the case of a refusal under (a)(11), employers only need to report admissions made to the specimen collector));
• Actual knowledge (as defined in 382.107) that a driver has used alcohol on duty, including a traffic citation for driving under the influence (DUI)/driving while intoxicated (DWI) in a commercial vehicle that requires a commercial driver’s license (CDL), used alcohol within four hours of coming on duty, used alcohol prior to post-accident testing, or has used a controlled substance;
• Negative return-to-duty test results*; and
• Completion of follow-up testing.*

*Only reported if the violation that led to the need for the test occurred on or after January 6, 2020.

• Any verified positive, adulterated, or substituted drug test;
• A driver’s failure to provide a sufficent specimen for a test and a medical evaluation reveals no valid explanation for the failure;
• A driver’s failure to undergo a medical exam or evaluation as directed by the MRO as part of the verification process (unless it involved a pre-employment test conducted without a contingent offer of employment);
• A driver’s admission to the MRO that the driver adulterated or substituted a specimen; and
• Other refusals that the MRO might note in Step 6 on the drug testing form.

SAPs must report the following, if the underlying violation occurred on or after January 6, 2020:

• The date of the SAP’s initial assessment of the driver (must be reported by the end of the first business day after the assessment); and
• The driver’s successful completion of the SAP’s return-to-duty plan, indicating that the driver is ready for a return-to-duty test (must be reported by the end of the business day on which the driver was determined to have completed the return-to-duty process).

Motor carriers must educate drivers about the information that will be reported into the Clearinghouse (382.601(b)(12)).

In most cases, a driver’s Clearinghouse record will not be “cleared” until the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is notified that the driver has completed treatment and has passed a return-to-duty test and all follow-up tests, and five years have passed since the date of the violation.