
FAQ
Answers To Your Most Common Questions
With testing, you know what is already in your patient's system and whether it is safe to prescribe a medication. Medication Monitoring prevents dangerous drug interactions and also determines if a patient is taking their medication as prescribed. Testing allows physicians to make swift and informed decisions regarding pain management. When patients are taking their medication as prescribed, it can control and reduce long term costs for the payers. Testing is a crucial link in the overall quality of chronic pain management for patients.
Within five minutes you will know Rapid Test results for the twelve of the most commonly abused drugs. These results are obtained utilizing special CLIA-waived test cups. Physicians can prescribe and dispense pain medications with a higher degree of confidence while the patient is still in their office.
While the Rapid Test cups are usually accurate, they do have the potential to give false positives and false negatives. The laboratory uses more sophisticated and accurate methods — Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) or Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS) to confirm the presence of drug compounds. The lab also quantitatively tests all positive results. Quantitative testing measures the amount of drug present. This valuable information helps you know if a patient is taking their medication as prescribed. In addition, the lab will test many other drugs beyond the 12 on the rapid test cup.
Confirmation results are available within 24-48 hours of arrival at the lab for most tests. Tests with numerous positives may take a little longer because we perform additional quantitative testing. Our encrypted website allows you to track every stage of testing for each urine test you submit to Toxicology Management Services.
Specimen volume is much lower with oral fluid. Drug concentrations are present in lower levels in oral fluid than urine; therefore lower screening and confirmation levels are required. Oral fluid identifies the parent drug and sometimes the drug metabolite. Urine testing is targeted at the drug metabolite
The subject should not have had anything to eat or drink, or have anything in his/her mouth for 10 minutes prior to collection. The collection is observed to ensure that the subject cannot introduce something to the specimen during the collection. If these collection procedures are followed the chances of dilution and adulteration are virtually eliminated.