Now is a great time for those employing CDL drivers to review your FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse account to check your query purchases. We recommend doing this twice a year, just before the spring and fall seasons, when hiring CDL drivers is top of mind. Not having enough queries purchased can potentially hang the process up for those who use a third-party administrator (C/TPA) to conduct their drivers' queries, as only the employer can purchase the query plans.
Employers of CDL drivers must conduct a pre-employment query of the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse when their drivers are newly employed or rehired, as well as at least once per year for each CDL driver they employ. The annual query requirement is tracked on a rolling 12-month basis, and the one-year time frame resets with each query conducted on a driver. A limited query satisfies the annual query requirement. Employers must obtain a general consent from CDL drivers they employ before conducting limited queries in the Clearinghouse.
Note: If your company uses the Asmark integrated system for third-party administration (TPA), the information on CDL drivers is automatically passed along to Forward Edge & Associates, the integrated TPA, to conduct either the pre-employment or annual queries as needed. Purchasing plenty of queries ahead of time is an important piece of the process to avoid delays.