With or without intervention by the New York State Department of Health’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC), your employer may be well within their right to ask that you submit to a drug test. At the same time, you may hold the legal right to refuse this testing. This may not pass without potential consequences, though. Without further ado, please read on to discover what might possibly happen if, as a doctor, you refuse to take a drug test from your employer and how one of the seasoned New York physician defense lawyers at Walker Medical Law can help justify your denial.
As a doctor, can I refuse a drug test by my employer?
Yes, under general circumstances, you may refuse a drug test as a doctor practicing medicine in New York State. The only exception to this, though, may be if you are enrolled in a Professional Assistance Program (PAP) of some sort. This may be the case if you have already had a hearing with the OPMC Board, received a guilty verdict for medical misconduct due to substance abuse issues, and you are only allowed to have your medical license reinstated if you comply with drug testing and other parameters.
Otherwise, there are very likely repercussions to denying a drug test. For one, New York is an at-will employment state. This means your employer has the right to terminate your employment for any legal reason or no reason at all, so long as it is non-discriminatory. And so, refusing drug testing may be considered a valid ground for termination. This is especially because being a doctor is a safety-sensitive job, and your employer may have reasonable suspicion to believe you are putting your patients in harm’s way due to substance-related reasons. Secondly, your employer may enforce specific company policies or disclose certain clauses within your employment contract that state drug test refusal leads to the loss of your employment, in so many words.
What defenses can I take for refusing or failing a drug test?
To reiterate, refusing a drug test as a doctor may call for disciplinary action by the OPMC Board, primarily the potential suspension or revocation of your medical license. If you are up against this fate, you must due everything in your power to defend your reasoning. For example, you may claim that you believed the drug test request was based on discrimination rather than valid, reasonable suspicion. Or, you may argue that you have a medical condition that makes it difficult or impossible for you to produce the sample necessary for the test, such as a physical condition like a urinary system dysfunction or a mental condition like obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Say that you were agreeable to taking a drug test but ultimately failed it. Well, you may take certain defenses for this, too. Again, you may state that you have a certain medical condition or take a certain prescription medication that altered or skewed your results (i.e., kidney disease, liver disease, diabetes, etc). Or, you may argue that the test sample was mishandled and therefore your results were tampered with. Nonetheless, if you are ready to get started on your case, please retain the services of one of the competent New York physician defense lawyers as soon as you can. We at Walker Medical Law look forward to receiving your outreach.
