What to Expect From Your Drug Test

People need drug testing for various reasons, including before you get hired for a job. More importantly,  it helps doctors evaluate what substances are in your system to provide you with the help you may require to get sober.

Illegal drugs or addictive substances change how your brain works, making it difficult to quit using on your own.

At Prudent Medical Providers, we offer drug testing to help you or a loved one overcome addiction. Our experienced nurse practitioners, Sarah Phillips DNP, APRN, and Jorein Teves, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, carefully evaluate your drug test to provide you with the help and treatments you need to fight addiction.

Who needs a drug test?

At Prudent Medical Providers, our team offers drug testing as a way to seek help or treatment for drug abuse and addiction. If you're struggling with any of the following substances, a drug test could reveal what you need to improve your health:

• Opioids
• Narcotics
• Heroin
• Fentanyl
• Morphine
• Nicotine
• Methamphetamine
• Cocaine
• Oxycodone
• Marijuana

You may require a drug screen if you're ready to fight addiction and enroll in rehab. We perform repeat drug screens during treatment to ensure you're free of illegal substances. Drug testing is the first step in seeking professional care for an addiction.

Withdrawal is a severe side effect of quitting illegal substances and can be very dangerous. If you've tried to become sober on your own without success or are afraid of withdrawal symptoms, a drug screen helps us know how to treat you safely.

Preparing for your drug test

There's nothing you need to do to prepare for a drug test except attend your appointment. You should bring a valid ID and your insurance card and be ready to urinate if you have a urine drug screen.

We walk you through the steps of the test, depending on which test we’re doing. Our team offers multiple forms of drug screening, including urine, hair follicle, blood, and breath tests. The type of test you need depends on the drugs we’re checking for.

Be prepared to share with our team what medications you take regularly and any illegal substances you've had. We may ask you when you last used drugs and how much you used before the test.

What to expect at your appointment

At your appointment, we explain the reasoning for the drug test and what will happen. For instance, if you're having a urine drug screen, we walk you through the process and give you a sterile cup to fill with a urine sample.

You may need to provide the urine sample before a team member to ensure it's your urine and not someone else's. Once you give the sample, we send it to our lab for testing.

A blood test requires a quick and simple blood draw from your arm. We clean the area off and gently insert a needle into your vein to get a blood sample. We then send the sample to our in-house lab to test for specific drugs in the body.

Hair follicle testing requires us to take a sample of your hair to send off for evaluation. Some slow-growing hair on the body can hold on to a substance for up to a year, although scalp hair has only a three-month testing window.

After we collect your sample, we send it off for evaluation. The time it takes to get the results depends on what drugs we are testing for and the type of sample sent.

Once we get your results, we bring you back in for a follow-up to determine the proper treatment route for your specific goals and needs.

To learn more about our drug testing process, call Prudent Medical Providers at one of our offices in Tacoma or Federal Way, Washington, or request a telehealth appointment here on the website.