Substance Abuse Testing & Background Screening Solutions

The "North American Substance Abuse Program"

To provide a safe and substance abuse-free workforce while protecting workers' rights and privacy. The NASAP guidance document includes a process for rehabilitation and keeps individuals who test positive from moving between contractor companies (CC) without successful completion of an approved rehabilitation program.

The NASAP Policy reduces the unnecessary testing redundancies that now exist for many companies, thereby reducing the overall administrative costs for both the Owners and contractor companies. As the number of participating workers increases, pre-access testing will be greatly reduced, and lower costs for all stakeholders. Additionally, contractor companies will have a choice of who administers NASAP Screening for them. There are a number of Third-Party Administrators (TPAs) for companies to choose from to perform the screening.

Experienced, highly qualified, independent Third-Party Administrators (TPAs) execute the NASAP program.

The TPAs perform:

• Notifications
• Specimen Collections
• Testing
• Database Management
• Medical Reviews
• Reporting Workers' Statuses, etc.
• Recommend a qualified Substance Abuse Program for rehabilitation
• Third-Party Administrators are audited every 3 years by a qualified, third-party consultant.

TPAs will administer the NASAP requirements for participating workers for their clients.

Administration includes:

• Notification of required tests.
• Specimen collections & testing.
• Database management.
• Medical reviews.
• Referrals to substance abuse professionals for rehabilitation and maintaining status information for workers.

Additionally, TPAs train appropriate contractor company representatives who will be involved in administering NASAP.

TPAs will report worker statuses to the SaaS database and will coordinate with other TPAs as TPA employees transfer to other companies.

Third-Party Administrators (TPAs) will train Contractor Representatives on their roles within NASAP, in addition to the use of each TPA's web tools.

You will need to contact the Third-Party Administrator (TPA), your employer, or the company that initiated your drug screen. NASAP is simply the guidance document for the standardized substance abuse testing program.

The North American Background Screening Consortium (NABSC) is a standardized criminal background screening program initiated and developed by Owners. The target population for the program includes contractor company workers providing maintenance, construction, and operational support services at petrochemical facilities such as chemical plants and refineries, energy production and utility facilities, as well as other industrial manufacturers. The Owners recognize the benefits of contractor company workers’ background screening in identifying individuals who may pose a risk to the Owner's assets and personnel that may cause serious safety incidents, workplace violence, domestic terrorist acts, and theft of materials, equipment, or technology. Prior to the implementation of this program, each Owner required contractor company employers to conduct background screens on their workers, utilizing a variety of criteria. By moving to a standardized program with common criteria requirements, this program will improve consistency of application and reduce administrative effort by contractor company employers to meet multiple Owner requirements. This will increase reciprocity, which helps to reduce costs.

In order to become "active" in the NABSC program, a contractor company worker will have to have a background screen performed by an approved NABSC Third Party Administrator (TPA) utilizing the NABSC program criteria and have been assigned a "grade" by that TPA. Until a valid screen under the program is completed, the contractor company worker will not be listed as "active" in the NABSC program. The Owner companies have the right to allow or deny access to their sites at any time and for any reason. They also have the ability to accept other forms of validation to ensure that workers meet their respective access requirements. They (the Owner) may elect to grant a variance to contractor company workers with current background screens and certain tenure at that Owner"s site (e.g., "grandfather"). However, those decisions will be made by the respective Owners' representatives and will not impact the contractor company workers' status of "inactive" until a valid screen is performed under the NABSC program requirements. The NABSC program requires a new background screen to be conducted every two years, so Owners may elect to phase this program in over a two-year period by grandfathering current site workers until two years have elapsed from their last screen, and then execute a screen within NABSC. All new contract company workers on the site would be screened in compliance with the NABSC program requirements.

Under the program requirements, a new background screen will be required every two years to maintain an "active" status within NABSC. An owner may elect to waive this or grandfather contractor company workers with long-term, unbroken tenure at an owner's site. However, beyond two years, these workers will be listed as "inactive" in the NABSC program.

site, the contractor company employer will have the prospective worker sign a release to initiate a Background Screen. The contractor company employer will request the screen via their preferred approved TPA. The TPA will perform the background screen utilizing the NABSC Program criteria. If the background screen results are a clean record, a grade of 00 will be assigned to the contractor company worker, and the contractor company employer will be notified. An initial background screen grade between "01" and "07" (any grade other than "00") will be assigned and shall initially be identified as a "provisional" grade. When a provisional background screen grade is identified, the Consortium TPA shall issue a Pre-Adverse Action Letter to the contractor company worker and contractor company employer who ordered the background screen, along with a copy of the background screen report and grade, and a copy of the Consumer Notification Rights, informing the individual of their right to dispute the background screen report and notifying the individual that the provisional background screen grade may restrict their eligibility for access to some participating Owner facilities. If the contractor company worker does not dispute the results of the background screen search within five (5) business days after receipt of the results, the Consortium TPA shall remove the provisional status from the background screen grade. This grade shall be considered the final background screen grade. Owners may deny access to their property by any contractor company worker whose background screen grade does not meet the Owner's background screen security requirements (Inactive status), and to contractor company workers who refuse to comply with the requirements of the Program. A contractor company worker with a background screen grade that meets a participating Owner’s background screen security requirements (Active status) is eligible for access to a participating Owner's property. However, any Owner reserves the right to allow or deny access without regard to background screening eligibility.

The program grade is a score that ranges from 00 to 07, and each number corresponds to a category of offenses as specified within the program. An individual's grade will only be known by the worker, his/her employer, and the TPA performing the background screen.

Background: Screen Grade Definitions

1. Clear Record, nothing found.
2. One or more "non-violent misdemeanors" were found. This includes any misdemeanor not shown on the list of violent misdemeanors.
3. One or more "violent misdemeanors" were found.
4. One or more "lesser felonies" were found. This includes any felony not shown on the list of higher felonies (05).
5. One or more "violent misdemeanors" and one or more "lesser felonies" were found.
6. One or more "higher felonies" were found.
7. One or more "higher felonies" and one or more "violent misdemeanors" were found.
8. The person was found to be on the current Patriot Act List (specially designated nationals, terrorists, narcotics traffickers, blocked persons, etc.).

The NABSC program will not increase the time required to secure a high-quality background screen. During the piloting of the program utilizing the approved TPAs, the average time required to perform the background screens ranged from 2.5 to 3.5 days. Feedback from participating contractor employers was very positive with respect to TPA responsiveness and turnaround time as compared to their current processes. Today, most TPAs' average time for background screens to be completed is around 48-72 hours.

If the worker is moving to a new employer who wishes to assign the worker to an NABSC participating Owner’s site, the new employer will solicit a Background Screen Consent form from the worker and forward it to their TPA. The contractor employer will be able to utilize the contractor version of the GateCheck application to determine if the worker has a current background screen, which TPA performed the screen and the expiration date. The contractor employer’s TPA will submit a query to the TPA who originally performed the background screen to determine whether the worker's status within NABSC guidelines (e.g., Owner's site access cut score) for assignment to the prospective owner's site is active or inactive. If the status is active, the contractor employer may assign the worker to the owner’s site. If the status is inactive, the contractor's employer may not assign the worker to the owner’s site. Because Owners may have different security requirements, a worker could be active at one Owner’s site but inactive at another Owner’s site. For example, Owner A allows access for workers with grades 00 through 04, and Owner B only allows grades 00 through 02.

The TWIC program is a federally mandated program being administered by the Coast Guard for Homeland Security. Under this program, security assessments (background screens) are being performed by the FBI or other government agencies and apply to Owner workers as well as any contractor company workers who need access to the Owner’s covered facility. The screening criteria being utilized for the TWIC program are primarily focused on certain Felony convictions and terrorist related offenses, since this program is focused on the protection of critical infrastructure assets from terrorist activity or attack. Owners and contractor workers have no input or control in the TWIC program operation and will receive no information regarding information reviewed or discovered during their background screening process. The process is pass/fail. The NABSC program, however, provides both the contractor workers and contractor employers with information on the workers' screening results, and provides a mechanism for Owners to screen contractor workers against their individual site access requirements. The NABSC program is designed by Owner companies to identify individuals who may pose a risk to Owner financial assets and the people having access to Owner facilities through behavior that may cause serious safety incidents, workplace violence, domestic terrorist acts, and theft of materials, equipment, or technology. The screening criteria reviews all felonies and also a variety of classes of misdemeanors that potentially represent an unacceptable risk to Owners.

You will need to contact the Third-Party Administrator (TPA), your employer, or the company that initiated your background screen. NABSC is simply the guidance document for the standardized background screening program.

The North American Background Screening Consortium (NABSC) is a collaborative effort by Owner / Plant Facility representatives and representatives from the following organizations:

• Industry Business Roundtable (IBR)
• Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance (GBRIA)