Comments on delay of medical examiner certification rule must be in by Aug. 20

The comment period regarding the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s decision to delay several provisions of the medical examiner’s certification integration final rule is about to close.

FMCSA published the interim final rule calling for the delay on June 21 in the Federal Register. The final day to comment is Monday, Aug. 20.

The final rule, which was originally published in April 2015 and would have eliminated the need for truck drivers to carry their medical cards, was set to go into effect on June 22. Now the rule will not be implemented until June 22, 2021.

According to the agency, the action was taken to provide FMCSA additional time to complete certain information technology system development tasks for its National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners and provide the state driver’s licensing agencies sufficient time to make the necessary programming changes.

One of the issues that prompted the delay was when the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners website was compromised on Dec. 1. The FMCSA has been working for more than nine months to return the website to full functionality.

“FMCSA has reluctantly concluded that it will not be able to electronically transmit medical examiner certification information from the national registry to the state driver’s licensing agencies nor will the state driver’s licensing agencies be able to electronically receive the medical examiner certification information from the national registry for posting to the CDL information system driver record as intended by the medical examiner’s certification integration final rule,” the FMCSA said when it originally announced the delay in April.

The current version of the registry website allows commercial drivers to search for certified medical examiners.