Implementation Guidelines - Federal Transit Administration - U.S. ...

allegation of discrimination under Title I of the ADA.) Congress passed the Omnibus Act more
than a year after it passed the ADA, and the former statute’s specific mandates for various types
of testing clearly, as a matter of statutory interpretation, would prevail over any contrary
inferences anyone would attempt to draw from the more general provisions of the latter.
A related issue concerns the confidentiality of the records of alcohol tests. To the extent that
an alcohol test is regarded as a medical examination, the records of the test would be “treated as
a confidential medical record” under the ADA (see §102(c)(3)(B) of the ADA). Under this
provision, records of a medical examination are required to be kept in a separate medical file.
The purpose of any requirements for confidentiality of a medical record is to safeguard the
employee’s right of privacy with respect to personal medical information. An employee may, of
course, waive such a right. (As a general matter, medical confidentiality provisions allow a
patient to permit medical information to be provided to third parties.) The DOT rules, by
requiring the employee to consent in writing, to the provision of test records to subsequent
employers or third parties, are fully consistent with normal medical confidentiality waiver
practices and with the ADA. It would clearly be anomalous to view a medical records
confidentiality provision as prohibiting an employee from voluntarily agreeing that a previous
employer or physician could send a medical record to a current employer or physician.
Appendix C. ADA Discussion C-6 August 2002