Starting yesterday, there is a new requirement for medical certificates that affects all truckers under the FMCSA’s jurisdiction. Now, all medical certificates issued to commercial truck drivers must be completed by a certified medical examiner. Medical certificates will still need to be renewed at least every two years. The new requirement shouldn’t place too big of a damper on trucker’s ability to have their USDOT physical done. The FMCSA says that there are currently 22,000 certificate holders with another 27,000 that have applied.
I did a quick search to see how many examiners close to our office and there were about 25 within a 15 minute drive from our office in Lakeville, Minnesota. There were a lot of chiropractic clinics and a number of MinuteClinic locations, too.
To see what it might be like for truckers who were on the road in the middle of nowhere, and realized they needed to renew their certificate, I ran a quick search of some smaller towns throughout Minnesota and South Dakota. There results of this rather unscientific survey were pretty good:
- Albany, MN (20 miles west of St. Cloud) – 2 examiners
- Yankton, SD (80 miles southwest of Sioux Falls) – 5 examiners
- St. Charles, MN (20 miles east of Rochester) – 1 examiner
Hopefully the drivers whose previous practitioner isn’t certified can find an examiner close. You can find a list of Certified Medical Examiners listed by state or zip code.