The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) website used by truck drivers to find a US DOT certified examiner to obtain their medical certification is indefinitely down, according to a press release from the FMCSA.
The website has been down for two weeks and it remains unclear when the site will become fully functional in the future. The site allows truck drivers to locate doctors that are on the national registry to perform DOT physicals.
“The National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners website is currently down,” the website said. “FMCSA IT Support is aware of the issue and is working on a solution to remedy the situation. Once the site returns to service, a notification will be sent to all certified medical examiners. We suggest drivers and carriers continue to visit the site periodically to determine availability.”
The FMCSA is “working as expeditiously as possible to correct a technical issue affecting” the site, says spokesperson Duane DeBruyne. The agency is directing drivers in need of medical certification to reach out to examiners directly “to verify that they are certified and listed in the National Registry. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Certified examiners are to continue performing DOT physicals and to continue issuing certificates. The site malfunction does not affect the examiner’s certification. Examiners are to hold onto results from completed physical in order to upload them to the site when it returns to working order.
Truck drivers are required by the FMCSA to use an examiner from the registry to receive their physical as of 2014. Further, examiners are required to pass certain tests in order to become certified by the DOT.
“We’ve had a lot of questions about why it’s down and how long it will be down,” Megehee said. “I haven’t been told why it’s down or how long. All I’ve been told is ‘soon.'”
“Although the National Registry is currently not operational, certified medical examiners are able to continue conducting physical qualification examinations of CMV drivers,” the website said. “Medical examiners should hold all examinations completed during the outage and upload to the National Registry system when it is back online with no penalties.”
Until the site is fixed, drivers are advised to use the OOIDA website to read reviews on certified medical examiners. For more information click here.