I 100% agree it is all about the money. They get a test that mostly works - except when it gets a false positive. Then they don’t worry about the poor people that get the false positives.

And the people in the business that monitor compliance. Well... why would they care if you are getting false positives either. That just means they get paid more too. It you that is just SOL not them...

Never mind it ruins people’s lives. I truly hope it ends up bitting some of them in the rear... or someone they love with the same results.

I do have a question though. You say you had to do “finger stick”. I assume this is with some place doing the backend testing with USDTL? Our experience with LabCorp was they only did the blood-drawn PETH using what was the MedTox backend tests (now owned by LabCorp).

For the USDTL ones, I strongly believe you can mess that test up in collection based on the experiences of my wife and Fairlane.

A couple hints that “may” help but I cannot say will fix the problems. Just things we made them change over time but did not have enough good tests with the USDTL test to feel good about these being responsible for the changes. I still just think the test is just flawed.

1) Make them use a factory fresh test kit that has not been setting around too long. Have them open it in front of you. You would think this would be obvious... but not all collection facilities do this...

2) Do not let them use the alcohol wipe. The USDTL instructions tell them not to use an ethanol based wipe. The ones they were using were not but we made them stop using them totally.

3) Do not let them squeeze or milk the finger. The USDTL instructions tell them not to... because it stops the bleeding. I found some research papers showing how this can negatively effect other finger prick tests. Can’t say that is the case here but it is something we changed.

4) do not let them wipe your finger on the card. Make the blood drop and fall. They will complain about this unless you are a bleeder. But again it is in the USDTL instructions but more subtly than I stated here.

5) make the seal the kit in front of you after testing.