Retrospective quality review of Department of Transportation (DOT) commercial drivers medical examination forms

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the quality of completion among both drivers and medical examiners in filling out Commercial Driver's (CD) Medical Examination Report Forms. Methods: This was a cross-sectional retrospective study of abstracted data from the year 2019. CD Medical Examination Report Forms, collected from a single nationally-based employer and initially reviewed by corporate medical directors, were evaluated by the study team for completeness of documentation provided by both drivers and medical examiners (MEs). Relevant findings included unanswered questions, inconsistency between responses, and lack of necessary elaboration for positive responses. Results: Among 1603 examinations, MEs completed the Medical Examination Report Form incompletely or incorrectly in 30% of examinations (n = 484). Drivers inconsistently filled out their health history with elaborations 38.7% of the time. Most commonly, they failed to elaborate on positive health history responses in 28.7% of examinations, but other types of errors were noted as well. Conclusions: A considerable proportion of drivers or examiners (n = 890, 55%) failed to adequately or correctly complete CD Medical Examination Report forms.