9
Î When a patient is stable in treatment, drug testing should be done at
least monthly. Individual consideration may be given for less frequent
testing if a patient is in stable recovery. When possible, testing should
occur on a random schedule.
Random Testing
Î Random unannounced drug tests are preferred to scheduled drug
tests.
Î A random-interval schedule is preferable to a fixed-interval schedule
because it eliminates known non-testing periods (for example, if
Monday is randomly selected from a week interval, the patient knows
they will not be tested Tuesday-Saturday), and it is preferable to a
truly random schedule because it limits the maximum number of days
between tests.
Table 1. Terms Often Used Imprecisely to Refer to
Presumptive and Definitive Tests
Presumptive Definitive
Qualitative Quantitative
Preliminary Confirmatory
Immunoassay Chromatography/mass-spectrometry
Point of care/in-office/lab-based In-office/lab-based
Screen Confirmation
Semi-quantitative/quasi-quantitative Absolute level/creatinine-corrected
Simple (cup/strip/dipstick/cassette) Complex
Class or category test Specific drug identification
2015. http://www.udtconcensus.org/.
