In this episode of the Children First Family Law podcast, Krista speaks with Tim Reid, Director of Business Development at U-VERIFY™ Testing.
Originally from Australia, Tim now lives in Austin, Texas, and works closely with U-VERIFY™’s San Diego-based laboratory while often connecting with clients and partners in Indiana. With a background in clinical pharmacology and experience across multiple industries, Tim introduces U-VERIFY™, a testing service designed to eliminate many of the problems family law professionals face when monitoring substance use. Traditional drug and alcohol testing often relies on inconvenient, costly, and sometimes unreliable methods. U-VERIFY™ changes this landscape with legally defensible, DNA-verified urine testing that can be completed remotely while protecting children and supporting accountability.
Krista and Tim explore why urine remains the gold standard for drug and alcohol testing, the challenges of tampering with traditional tests, and how DNA verification ensures results truly belong to the individual tested. They also discuss the limitations of breathalyzers, the importance of comprehensive testing panels, and how U-VERIFY™ helps build trust between co-parents in high-conflict custody cases.
By addressing both the science and the legal practicalities, Tim demonstrates how this service strengthens safety measures for children while streamlining the testing process for families and attorneys.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Urine remains the preferred specimen type for reliable drug and alcohol testing
- DNA verification removes the need for invasive observed collections
- Breathalyzers have limits, so using complementary tools may be necessary
- U-VERIFY™ covers more than 70 substances, including alcohol, fentanyl, and prescription drugs
- Legally defensible results backed by accredited lab standards
- Remote testing streamlines the process, reduces conflict, and helps build trust in co-parenting
Resources from this Episode
uverify@phamatech.com for more info
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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Verified Sobriety: How U-VERIFY™ Protects Children in Family Law Podcast Transcript
Tim Reid 00:00
We run testing and provide results on at the moment, I think specifically, it’s 72 substances which does include both the alcohol metabolites, which, if someone tests positive on a breathalyzer, they’re likely going to have to go and do a urine drug alcohol test that tests for those two metabolites. So, from my role at the company, my background in clinical pharmacology, it’s really just thinking about the testing in a completely different way. Obviously, it’s going to require the judge and the conflicting parties to agree, but there is a definite case to say, “how about we eliminate breathalyzer testing, which is expensive”. I think you would know, if you go online, it’s not cheap either. And, just say we’re agreeing that both parties, or one party that’s being tested, agrees to be abstinent. Now, we just do one test a week, where it can be in a random testing environment. I haven’t mentioned that our case management system has an inbuilt test randomizer so the stakeholders can schedule when they want. Because we do that very comprehensive test panel with the confirmatory, very sensitive testing, it makes it very difficult for someone who is consuming substances to essentially get through the test, or not have a positive test, if they are non compliantly consuming substances.
Intro/Outro 01:27
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host, Krista Nash, is an attorney, mediator, a parenting coordinator, and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice. As always, please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
Krista Nash 02:16
Welcome, everybody, to today’s episode of the podcast. I’m happy, today, to introduce everybody to Tim Reed. He has a bunch to share with us today. He works with a company called U-VERIFY, and we’re going to talk about DNA verification to help in family law. So, welcome Tim. I was sharing while we were preparing here that I have done a lot of different family law cases where we’re dealing with sobriety issues or addiction issues with parents. I think I have five different episodes I was telling you about early on my podcast, where we’re talking about all the traditional ways that we go and test parents. It can be very cumbersome. There can be a lot of missed tests or unverified tests, or there’s this constant fighting going on about this with parents. I’ll just refer you back to previous episodes if you’re listening and you’re interested. There’s four or five that talk about what a substance use evaluation looks like, what PETH testing looks like, and what SoberLink and some of these other devices look like. I’m probably going to have them on the show as well in the future, the representatives of those companies, to dig a little deeper into why they think they’re the best. And so, with the caveat that this is a company person talking, give us the understanding of what is different about what this company offers and why that matters.
Tim Reid 03:36
Yes. So, the primary challenge for drug and alcohol testing in the family law industry is that many of the conflicting parties that either agree to be tested or are mandated to test are typically working or have other responsibilities. This can make it challenging to attend what is traditionally asked of them, where they have to go to a lab collection site or a third-party vendor to complete that drug and or alcohol test. So, how U-VERIFY differs is that it allows that individual that is being asked to test, or is required to test, to do it from anywhere within the USA, from the privacy and convenience of their home, vacation, work, or any other residents that they are in. This is very unique for drug and alcohol testing. As you mentioned, remote handheld breathalyzers have been around for many years, but they only test for alcohol; however, there are many other substances that may need to be tested, but right now it’s very difficult to test for that reliably and conveniently for that individual.
Krista Nash 04:47
So, tell us how it works. How does someone who is court-ordered to test, in order to prove they are safe for their children, go about taking this test? How often are they doing that? How does it work? Does it get mailed in? Tell us about all of that.
Tim Reid 05:08
So, I’ll start with the first thing, which is that, primarily, urine drug testing is used as the specimen type, versus oral fluid or blood testing. This is because typically, most people find it easy to produce a urine specimen at any time of day.
Krista Nash 05:24
Let me stop you too, because I did start this whole thing asking Tim where he’s from. I was like, “You’re from Australia, aren’t you, even though you’re living in the United States?” So, I just want to clarify, not that we don’t understand your English, but that he said urine is used versus oral fluid. So we’re saying versus saliva, right or blood, right? So, the three ways to test for this stuff is through something that comes out of your body? It can be either blood, saliva or urine, and urine is easier?
Tim Reid 05:53
Correct. So, there’s a couple of reasons why, and I won’t get too technical too quickly, but across most industries, if not all industries, urine is used as a biological specimen type. Urine is the preferred, or what they call the “gold standard” specimen type to perform drug and alcohol testing on. It’s great in terms of giving you a good quality drug and alcohol test. However, that typically means that for that result or that toxicology data to be legally defensible, the person who’s doing the test has to be observed producing the urine, or has to be observed while the urine leaves their body, because, unfortunately, one of the big challenges with urine testing is it’s very susceptible to tampering and adulteration.
Krista Nash 06:41
I’ve seen in my cases nearly every possible, maybe not every possible, but many iterations of ways people get around this. People who are addicted to things, I will just say, are very creative, and there’s a whole bunch of internet help for them to share with their fellow addicted people about how to get around these things. So, for example, the reason it has to be observed, in part, is if somebody is literally watching to make sure it comes out of your body, because, and that’s because these urine samples can be purchased. There are some that are from animals. I’ve seen horse urine found as the substance these people will tape it to their bodies and pretend they’re peeing it out that way. There are so many different ways they do this. Also, there’s a real problem too, that I’ve seen in several cases, where the lab, the places where they’re going, get chummy with these people, and they can be bribed and they can fake it for you.There are just a million different ways that this gets screwed up, right?
Tim Reid 07:41
100%. 100%. So, as you just mentioned, the ease at which people now can subvert a urine drug test means that it’s very important, when the drug test results are being used in a legal environment or a custody battle, that the urine is observed when it leaves the body, which does mean that, typically, it’s required that a third party or a lab collection site where an independent person is watching the urine is used. That means that it’s very inconvenient, it’s very invasive, and sometimes not feasible for drug and alcohol testing to be performed. How U-VERIFY testing overcomes that challenge, and our big difference in the market is, instead of having a human observe the urine leave the body, we actually use DNA verification technology, and also some synthetic urine detection technology, to verify that the urine belongs to that individual at the laboratory, without the need of that human observed urine collection.
Krista Nash 08:51
It is urine though? I thought it was you swabbing your cheek or something like that, but that’s not correct. You’re checking if it is actually their urine.
Tim Reid 09:03
Correct. So, the attorneys, the judge, whoever the conflicting parties and the stakeholders are get the benefits of the gold standard drug test, which is the urine-based test. The actual person testing has the convenience and privacy of a remote, unobserved collection process, which is very unique. I think you may be wondering about all of the different scenarios where this could apply, but definitely for working parents or conflicting parties that have a lot going on with parental responsibilities. This can be a very, very helpful service for them.
Krista Nash 09:44
Why is urine the gold standard over blood or saliva?
Tim Reid 09:49
So, there are a number of reasons, and I’ll try and summarize them quickly. So, number one is that the detection window of urine is,and it’s subjective, but typically, that is ideal for the purpose of that test. So, it will detect substances from anywhere three to four hours post consumption, out to seven days, depending on, obviously, that individual’s metabolism, the amount of the substance consumed, and then also at the laboratory, what type of drug testing is performed on the urine. So, for the person who is using those results for whatever reasons, they can get a pretty good snapshot from four hours to seven days of what that individual has consumed. If you look at something like blood, if you do a whole blood test, once you get through that collection, which is a more of an invasive collection requiring a needle in the vein and things like that, it has a much shorter detection window, because the substance is flowing freely through the blood at that point. So, the substance is being metabolized and excreted into the bladder. Oral fluid is the same because the saliva in your mouth is essentially regenerating. In the mouth, the substances don’t last as long in the saliva as they do in urine. If you can imagine, in urine, it’s the waste in the body, whereas the body’s metabolizing the substances and draining them into the bladder.
Krista Nash 11:19
So, the substances are sitting there, correct? The blood is going through your body, the saliva is going through your body, and so it’s a receptacle in your bladder where it just sits?
Tim Reid 11:29
Yes. So, from a toxicology standpoint, that is the primary reason. Now people will say, “What about hair and nails?” Now, those specimen types are much more applicable if you’re wanting to test for more historical use. Now, the caveat to that is that you can’t test for as many substances or metabolites. So, urine, in that essence, has the ability to test for the most amount of drugs and substances and metabolites out of any of the specimen types. What’s a metabolite? So, if I use, for example, cocaine as a substance, when you ingest cocaine it varies, but the half life of cocaine is anywhere between 8 and 12 hours, and so it is metabolized rapidly into what is known as a metabolite. So, most laboratories will actually test for the metabolite rather than the parent drug of cocaine because if you were to test for the cocaine molecule, it can be metabolized out of the body very quickly, and so it can show up negative in a test even though someone has consumed that substance quite recently.
Krista Nash 12:44
I understand that from the alcohol stuff. If people listen to those old podcasts, you’ll hear us talk about PETH tests and how they show a half life. There is all of this half life stuff about how that works. So that’s probably the same idea, right?
Tim Reid 12:57
It is exactly the same. It’s the same principle. Most substances or molecules have a known half life, which is essentially the time taken for that molecule to be degraded or metabolized to half its concentration.
Krista Nash 13:13
I really appreciate that you’re trying to dumb this down for us a little, because I know you’ve got a pharmacology background. So, how fast do you get results? Do you mail this in? Do you upload something? Does it go into a device and it reads to you? How does it work?
Tim Reid 13:33
That is a really good question, Krista. So, it’s not a rapid test. U-VERIFY does not provide any results at the time of collection.
Krista Nash 13:48
If you go and buy a cup, a rapid testing cup, it will give you some sort of instant result.
If we go to either a lab, or you go to a drug store and you pee on a stick, it tells you right away, this has heroin in it, correct?
Tim Reid 13:57
So we are not a rapid test. We are a lab-based test. So, the person, or the individual, is completing the urine collection and mailing it into the lab. Our U-VERIFY kits come as part of the overall cost that the individual has paid for, and with a prepaid overnight shipping label. Once the specimen arrives at the laboratory, we provide the full results from the DNA verification, and the synthetic urine detection results within 72 business hours. And, most importantly, for the family law community, those results are legally defensible at that point. Traditional lab testing may provide what is known as a “presumptive result”. So, it’s an initial result that simply just says positive or negative, but it’s not legally defensible, and so if the individual does not admit to use, typically, the family law attorney or the stakeholder, has to then ask the laboratory to perform what is known as “confirmatory testing”, which can add time and costs.
Krista Nash 15:00
I’ve had this in cases where it’s like, “oh, we need a confirmation test. Will they do it? Will they not do it? Will the lab do it? Will the lab not do it? Do they throw away the sample? Did they do all these things?”
Tim Reid 15:16
I speak to a lot of prospective clients and ask, “what value do you put on that time?” You may know better than me, when you’re waiting around for a result and you’ve got a high conflict case, that waiting those extra three to four to five business days, maybe longer, can cost a lot of money, and it can generate a lot of issues for either party.
Krista Nash 15:44
So, somebody can be anywhere? They just have to be somewhere they can get to an overnight FedEx? Where do they go to mail it? FedEx, UPS, or what?
Tim Reid 15:53
So, Phamatech, which is the laboratory that performs and owns U-VERIFY, exclusively uses UPS. So, the individual does have to get the return or the completed specimen to a UPS store or approved retailer to ship that back. We have an integrated case management system that we actually pre-record and it tracks all of the return shipping labels in the individual’s kits. So, we don’t necessarily require them to get a receipt that confirms they’ve dropped it off because we can verify that on our end anyway, and so can the monitoring stakeholders. However, we actually recommend for the individuals to get a receipt for their own benefit. So, that way, if there’s any sort of discrepancy, or if people are alleging they didn’t drop it off, they can say, “hey, here’s the receipt. It got scanned in”.
Krista Nash 16:49
So, they have to get to a UPS store to mail it,and it’s included in the cost? Then it gets sent to you overnight, and then it takes 72 hours business hours to get it back to you? Are you talking three business days, or are you talking about eight hours in a business day, so 72 business hours?
Tim Reid 17:13
Another good question, Krista. I actually haven’t been asked that question before, but I’m glad that you’re paying attention to detail. So, it’s three business days. The laboratory itself does run 24 hours a day. So, yes, it’s three business days. If it were not three business days, if a specimen arrived today, which is a Tuesday, you would expect to have the full, legally defensible results by Friday.
Krista Nash 17:39
Okay. How do the results set get sent out? Is it an email? Is it a report? Is it locked? I’m just going through all the problems I’ve had in my cases. Is it locked somehow? Does it go to the other protective parents? We get problems with people changing their PDFs, and we also have problems where people are constantly dodging the Orders on releases. So, we’ll oftentimes have an Order that or an agreement that the protective parent will be able to get the lab results contemporaneously when the person who took the test gets them, and so therefore, there’s more veracity in the results, and it gets sent to them directly. So do you do that, or how does that work?
Tim Reid 18:24
Yes, we do. So, as I mentioned briefly, our case management system will track the kits going to the individual, and also the kits coming back. Within that system, we allow monitoring. We call them monitoring stakeholders. So, typically, the attorneys for each side will tell us who to list as what we call “results subscribers”. So, once those individuals are listed, and you can have as many as you like, when the test results are posted, they all get an email and/or a phone notification with a link. It’s a secure link at the same time simultaneously, where that individual that receives the notification can click on the link. We do require a two-factor authentication, which is, at the moment, the date of birth of the individual. Once they enter in the date of birth for that individual, they can access the PDF report. At that point, they can download, save, print, or do whatever they need to do with it. And, as you mentioned, the reason why we do that is for that exact reason we’ve had people editing PDFs. This happens not only in the family law industry, but also on the criminal justice side.
Krista Nash 19:40
People will do almost anything to change these things. It’s just a real problem. The monitoring stakeholders, I’ll actually use your language; in our world, it’s the protective parent who isn’t using substances in a dangerous way for children that is constantly accused of being over the top. It’s a cat and mouse game. The other parent will say, “man, you just won’t stop being the cat”, and the poor mouse has to worry about being chased all the time. It’s because of all the sneaky business that goes on, right? It makes that protective parent get crazy about it. It makes them, not in a bad way, but in a protective way for their children, because these things are quite serious, and the addict always thinks they can handle it, right? “Oh, there’s nothing to see here. No big deal.” I’m glad to hear you’ve got something that makes it easier, or at least bulletproof. We don’t have a drug equivalent to SoberLink or Backtrack, these handheld breathalyzers, which have all their own problems too, but at least they give us real time data. So, if somebody has a problem with cocaine, or heroin, or a marijuana problem… I’m in Colorado, so, marijuana problems are chronic. We can’t test for that stuff with our breathalyzers. At least the ones I know of, we are testing only for alcohol, but alcohol is probably the worst, the most chronic one that we see. So, if somebody has an alcohol problem where the parenting time is going on, are you seeing that people are using both? Are they doing the U-VERIFY for sort of these backup tests if they have a positive breathalyzer or they miss a test, for example?
Tim Reid 21:19
Yes. Another really good point or topic for you to bring up, Krista. So, yes. The short answer is yes. People will use both concurrently, and the reason is that the main difference that I would say, and it’s important for your listeners and the family law community to know, is that the primary purpose for breathalyzers for alcohol is to test for current impairment. That is something that a urine test, a saliva test, not just U-VERIFY, but any sort of urine drug test, oral fluid or saliva based drug test, same with hair and nail, cannot do. They are not telling you if something is detected, or whether the person is currently impaired. They are simply telling you that that person has consumed that substance somewhere during that detection window for that specimen.
Krista Nash 22:16
So, hair would be longer, nails would be even longer, correct? Same with PETH.
Tim Reid 22:20
You know, PETHs applicability, as it has for alcohol, has a really long detection window; however, it doesn’t tell you whether that person was impaired at this time, this time, or the time of collection. But, likewise, the flip side to that is that one of the biggest challenges with breath testing and breathalyzer technology is that the detection window is so sure, and so technically, or really in reality, you should be testing an individual not just around parenting time, but more so for abstinence-based monitoring, a minimum, every four hours, and that includes during the night, because if someone tests at 9pm and they’re not required to test again using a breathalyzer till 9am, most alcohol consumption, or at least the most common alcohol consumption, is at night. So, someone could consume quite a bit of alcohol after that 9pm test and still test negative at 9am. So, what I would tell your viewers and the family law community is, U-VERIFY is a great option for abstinence based monitoring where either party, or both parties, that are testing are not authorized to consume any amount of whatever substances are agreed upon, but it’s not going to replace that parenting time impairment testing where you’re wanting to know whether that individual is essentially drunk. If I can use the most common colloquial term for alcohol, because even if you do a U-VERIFY test around parenting time, and there’s cocaine or its metabolite detected the laboratory, Phamatech, or any other laboratory in the country, they can’t say to the monitoring stakeholders, “that person was high on cocaine or physically impaired”. We just know that they’ve taken it sometime in the previous testing period.
Krista Nash 24:15
How do you know when somebody has taken the urine sample? I mean, you don’t, right? I mean, sometime before they mailed it in?
Tim Reid 24:23
Correct. So, you know, one of the features of DNA in urine, I actually haven’t gone over how we actually do the verification, and I know you mentioned, “how does it happen?” We actually do a one-time, observed cheek swab during an individual’s first test. So, we do obtain a saliva sample from that individual. We don’t do any drug testing on it, but we do, essentially, a DNA profile or fingerprint. We keep that on file. So, when the urine comes in, we match the urine, and the DNA in the urine to that one time cheek swab on file. Why I bring that up is, while DNA is extremely stable in saliva and blood, for example, DNA is not stable in urine. So, if someone attempts to submit urine that they’ve excreted days or weeks prior, because they believe it doesn’t have any substances in it, we will detect, essentially, the lack of DNA in it, because as soon as urine leaves the body, the DNA begins to degrade quite quickly in it. So, that’s really the mechanism that we use to primarily identify when someone, for example, is submitting stored urine.
Krista Nash 25:43
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So you’d be able to see that it is pretty precise, where you could say, “this must be at least two days old because the DNA is gone.”
Tim Reid 25:49
It’s not precise in that aspect. What we do see is that any specimens that, I guess, excreted from the body, and I don’t know if that’s the right term I should keep using, “excreted from the body”, but any urine that has left the body more than four days after it’s received at the laboratory, and that includes, obviously, the shipping time; we do see an increased probability, or instance of there being lack of sufficient DNA present for us to do the verification. And so, I don’t have any issues putting it out there. There is still a little bit of a gap where someone may be out of time for the production of clean urine, and then they get randomly notified to test, maybe that same day or the next day. They may still have enough DNA in it, but they’ve gone out and consumed substances they shouldn’t have. There is still that possibility, but to continually do that in a random testing environment is very difficult. And so, that’s just something that all of our clients, organizations, and agencies take into consideration.
Krista Nash 26:59
So I think it’s important what you said before that this is really ideal for clients who need to confirm abstinence, right? Because a lot of the problems that we have around addiction and use of things is that we have legal substances. Everybody agrees, you know, mom or dad can’t be using cocaine or heroin, ever. But, marijuana, it’s okay, it’s legal, whatever. You can take a hit off marijuana if you want, as long as it doesn’t impair your parenting. And with alcohol, we expect social drinking. Most of the time, we’re like, “it’s okay”. I’ve had some very extreme problems in cases where people have problems with alcohol, and I’ve had some judges, it just really depends who you have on the bench, and they’ll say, “yeah, that’s okay. You can drink when you’re not on parenting time”, or, “you can drink a drink, but you can’t drink to intoxication when you’re on your parenting time”. So, we get into all of these splitting hairs arguments about whether it’s too much or not. It sounds like this, just like a lot of our testing wouldn’t be very productive if we’re trying to catch somebody who is allowed to drink, right?Then you do need the breathalyzer. I come out of cases, and I’m like, “What do you mean? They’re testing twice a day. Who created this order? This is a terrible order. Like, they’re testing at 7am and 7pm and that’s on the SoberLink device?” It does nothing. Even the SoberLink and Backtrack, which I’ll talk to those people when they come on the show, but even their own, plans that they have on there, they give the impression that it’s a two day test. It’’s a twice a day test. And you’re like, “Why do you even tell parents that that’s safe? Because it’s just so clearly not”, right?
Tim Reid 28:36
Yeah. I obviously can be perceived as a representative for a competitor from any sort of toxicologist, or person from a clinical background that has experience. You’re exactly right and how it’s got to that point of these recommendations of maybe twice a day, or once a day testing…I can’t necessarily comment on that. I would say that it’s not all on the breathalyzer vendor. I think the industry itself has experienced so many challenges from the conflicting party. Also, as we’re kind of here talking today, the inconvenience on making them go to a collection site, or a lab site to go and do a more robust test, they then weigh the pros and cons of that and say, “okay, well, maybe we can get away with two or three breathalyzers a day”. But, you don’t have to Google very hard to see that the actual technology that’s used in those devices simply can’t detect that breath alcohol for longer than that. That’s not the manufacturer’s issue, that’s just the feature of breath alcohol. It doesn’t last very long in the breath. So, using both, and maybe even using U-VERIFY as a confirmatory test. Instead of having to go to a collection site, using U-VERIFY can still save the individual a lot of time. Now, the challenge there is cost because an individual might say, “well, I don’t want to have to pay for a kit that I might never have to use”, right? If they never test positive on a breathalyzer, they never have to use the kit. So, it really depends on each individual case and what both parties are willing to agree to.
Krista Nash 30:21
So, let’s talk about the cost then. So, explain how that works. Is there a subscription that they pay for? Is it a certain length of time, or is it just straight up by kit, and what does that cost?
Tim Reid 30:30
Correct. So, we have an E-commerce site. How it works is, for family law attorneys or a mediator or a substance abuse evaluator, they would establish an account, free of charge, with Phamatech. We give them what we call a “referral code”, and then their clients, which we call “participants”, the people doing the test, simply go on our E-commerce site. They enter in the referral code, and they purchase their kits. The tests themselves are then shipped directly to the address that they nominate. The testing cost includes everything, or that kit cost includes everything. So, all the collection supplies, the return shipping supplies, all lab testing, DNA verification, everything like that is included in the cost. There are two kits. There’s a starter kit, because, as I mentioned, each individual, or client, has to do a one time cheek swab. Right now, the recommended retail price is $150. The starter kit includes both the swab and the first urine test. Then, every repeat test, or subsequent test, is $130. So, I’m aware that, depending on where the individual goes to a collection site, that’s pretty price comparable.
Krista Nash 32:00
I think it’s pretty price comparable to what I’ve seen, too. I think PETH tests are a lot more than that.
Tim Reid 32:12
Yeah, that’s about comparable, I think, to what we see, correct. And then people might ask “why?” That’s because when you go to a third party collection site, like an independent fast labs or an independent franchise collection site, those people, or those owners, make their money by reselling the drug tests. So, they go to a laboratory like Phamatech, essentially negotiate a wholesale price for the drug test, and then they resell the test to the consumer with an up charge, plus the collection fee. So, where U-VERIFY, again, is very different to the market currently, is that the family law attorneys are the monitoring stakeholders. They’re working directly with the laboratory,
Krista Nash 32:53
You’re cutting out the middle man,
Tim Reid 32:55
Correct. So, you can imagine that it is definitely disruptive to how current, particularly urine drug testing is performed. And, if you think about why the breathalyzers have been so successful, that’s because they have done that as well. They don’t require collection sites or any sort of third party to be facilitated.
Krista Nash 33:18
There’s a lot of overhead for these labs too. You’ve got to have people there. You have to pay these employees. There’s structural costs of rent or buildings. It makes sense that if you can cut that all out, you’re going to save a lot of money.
Tim Reid 33:32
Correct. I’m glad you clarified that I’m not kind of having a go at the collection site owners. They have to make sure they’re covering their bills and their cost to have the physical site. But, I know people might say, “Well, I’m sending my clients right now to a collection site, and they’re paying like, $150 for a test. How’s Phamatech providing all of this and a better quality drug test than the convenience for around the same price?”
Krista Nash 34:07
Does it have to go through these, what did you call them? Not the participants, but the broader people, like the family law people, or the substance evaluators, or whatever? What are those people? The monitoring stakeholders? Does it have to come through somebody like that, or can it come through an individual who signs up and then those monitoring stakeholders get added by someone like an attorney? For example, I work as a child advocate. I don’t really want this responsibility. I might be willing to be a recipient of it so I can see it, but I don’t necessarily want it to be under my account. Is that a thing? Why does that go through me?
Tim Reid 34:50
So, it doesn’t. The system that we use has a number of different ways it can work. One of them is what I’ve explained, where the monitoring law firm or the stakeholders have an account where they have direct access, and they can kind of monitor it from a higher level. But yes, if you have an individual who wants to go on a little bit like the breathalyzer companies, the judge might say, “hey, you need to go and sign up to this”, we can accommodate that. What we do need is, we have a welcome packet that needs to be signed by both entities that lists out and they agree on who those results subscribers are. Because, for example, if you’re signing up and you’re the person testing, how do we know that the person you’re telling us to send results to are the people that they’re meant to get to? So, there are a few safeguards around that, but absolutely we do have what we would call more of a direct to consumer service. They still require a referral code. I’m going to use you for an example right now. Again, if you went onto our website and tried to sign up, it doesn’t let you sign up because you don’t have a referral code, so you would have to email Phamatech and say, “Hey, I would like to begin testing”, or maybe you’ve already received the paperwork from your attorneys or the judge that you submit. Then you would email these completed forms to Pharmatech, and then we would either give you a referral code that’s already created, it’s a generic one that allows you to buy or, depending on what the circumstances are, we would generate your referral code so you can go and sign up.
Krista Nash 36:32
That’s great. The family law arena is sort of a newer area for you guys. I will tell you that most attorneys, I think I am speaking on behalf of most of us, and most people I know in this industry, wouldn’t want that level of responsibility. There’s just something that feels like you’re too involved. I have had some of them on those podcast stories where I have said, “Okay, I’m going to represent you, but you’re going to do everything I say from now on. You’re going to get nail tests, hair tests, you’re going to do breath tests.” Here I’d say, “you’re going to do, U-VERIFY, you’re going to do all of it. You’re going to do it all perfectly. And I want you to show it all to me, because we’re gathering all this up.” I still wouldn’t want it to go under my umbrella. It feels like I’m too enmeshed in it. So, where I see it could really help this entire industry, and my whole point is, how do we help children? How do we protect kids? We have a real disconnect when breathalyzers show up. First of all, we’re talking about alcohol. When breathalyzers show up, they miss a test, and then we almost always have a follow up test that they have to go take if they’ve missed one. Or, if we have a situation where everyone is always saying, “it’s a false positive, oh, sorry, I use mouthwash. It’s a false positive”. How many times does that actually happen? We’re constantly being told, “Oh, there’s nothing to see here”, and then most of our Orders then have this follow up that’s required, and that follow up is creating its own mess because of the things that we talked about earlier. So, I think this could be a really solid substitute for the follow up test. If we’re trying to talk about, if there’s an adequate timeframe, the Orders would have to be written pretty carefully, like, “if you miss this breathalyzer, you have to take it within an hour and ship it back to U-VERIFY” within six hours”. I think in the past, we have required them to text within a maximum of 16 hours. I don’t know your opinion on that, but I think it could be a really solid substitute for this follow up test, or it could be a good substitute for an easier way to test for these other substances. If you’ve got somebody who has these problems, you could put them on a test and say, “I want them to test every week for all of these other things.” Let’s say you have a cocaine user or something like that. Rather than going to the lab all the time, because we know there isn’t a home test, we’re going to trust you can’t just do an off screen test, right? So would those be good uses? U-VERIFY?
Tim Reid 38:59
So, there’s one thing we haven’t touched on, and it is another way or another reason why U-VERIFY differs from standard drug and alcohol testing. It is our test panel as standard includes, right now, it’s just over 70 substances and metabolites, some of those exotic, what we would call “exotic substances” like kratom or ketamine. We have a very extensive fentanyl panel, xylazine and also some commonly abused prescription drugs. They are all included as standard. So, one thing I would definitely have your listeners think about is that, while alcohol may be the most accessible substance to abuse, it is still only one substance. So, in my opinion, but also based on the understanding of speaking to the market, traditionally, other substances just haven’t been tested for, not because the stakeholders don’t want to test them, but because it’s very inconvenient. It’s very costly. When you want to do more of an expansive panel and the results take a long time on top of that in terms of looking at costs and how they’ve mitigated or managed, I would put out there that doing parenting time only impairment testing with a breathalyzer…Maybe if you’re wanting to manage cost, you eliminate the breathalyzer and have the parties agree to abstinence based and now you’re just doing the 70 panel drug and alcohol test that is likely going to be required anyway if they test positive on a breathalyzer.
Krista Nash 40:41
Did you say 70 – seven, zero? Because that is another very important thing you’re saying. I mean, you’re just 70. I’ve got to fight right now about how the guy’s not getting a seven panel. He got a five panel instead, and so now we’re all suspicious, like, “oh, what’s he doing? Why did you only get a five panel and not a seven panel? which two drugs are you doing?” Just so that people understand we’re talking about, one panel is one thing.
Tim Reid 41:04
Right. We run testing and provide results, at the moment, I think specifically, it’s 72 substances, which does include both the alcohol metabolites, which, if someone tests positive on a breathalyzer, they’re likely going to have to go and do a urine drug alcohol test that tests for those two metabolites. So, from my role at the company, my background in clinical pharmacology, it’s really just thinking about the testing in a completely different way. of Obviously, it’s going to require the judge and the conflicting parties to agree, but there is a definite case to say, “how about we eliminate breathalyzer testing”, which is expensive. If you go online it’s not cheap either, and just say we’re agreeing that both parties, or one party that’s being tested agrees to be abstinent. Now we just do one test a week, where, if they’re in a random testing environment, and I haven’t mentioned that, our case management system has an inbuilt test randomizer so the stakeholders can schedule when they want. Because we do that very comprehensive test panel with the confirmatory, very sensitive testing, it makes it very difficult for someone who is consuming substances to get through the test or not have a positive test if they are non-compliantly consuming substances, specifically alcohol. Alcohol sensitivities are right around the industry standard, if not a little bit better than that. So, depending on the amount of consumption, we can detect alcohol consumption outwards of five days from when the urine is actually excreted from the body.
Krista Nash 42:51
So other problems I’ve run into, I’m wondering how you all deal with, I’ve had a lot of issues, and this is going to just reveal how soaked I am in these cases. How do you detect or deal with dilute samples?
Tim Reid 43:03
So, like all labs, we do the specimen validity testing, which is kind of the standard, varies slightly between lab to lab, but they’re typically four additional tests that the laboratory runs on the urine to essentially designate whether that urine is normal or abnormal. So, Phamatech, U-VERIFY, we do all those standard tests. So, you know, measuring creatinine is the primary method to assess the dilution of the concentration of the urine, but also to adjudicate whether it’s diluted or not. We use the SAMSHA based criteria, which is anything less than 20 milligrams per deciliter of creatinine. We also do the specific gravity, which is another measure of the density of the urine. But, what’s interesting, Krista, is, and you may already know this, but for your listeners, if you go and buy fake urine from a gas station or a smoke shop or a vape shop, which is around $20 to $30 for a three ounce vial, those formulations, or those products, are formulated to have normal validity tests. So, that is why observed urine collection, or human observed urine collection is so important, because, say, someone tests positive on a breathalyzer, they go into a lab collection site and there’s not a robust human observation performed. You might say, “Well, what about the temperature?” Well, those products, if you’ve never seen one, come with a warming device and a temperature strip on the bottle, just like a urine collection cup would, and so the individual, and I would even go further, saying that most of the products have a little nozzle on the top that mimics the stream of urine. So, even if they’re being observed, or someone’s in the bathroom, but not directly observing, but they’re listening, you can even fan the stream of urine into the toilet. So, those products will have normal validity tests. So, no laboratory in the country will detect the use of synthetic or fake urine, and that’s where we haven’t talked about it yet, but with Phamatech, or the U-VERIFY service, we also run an additional test that accurately detects when specifically synthetic or non human urine is used, and so that gives you even more confidence that, “hey, I can feasibly do an unobserved, remote urine drug test, and I can still have a lot of confidence that the it belongs to the desired individual”.
Krista Nash 45:37
Why don’t the labs test for that? Is there something they could do to say it’s synthetic?
Tim Reid 45:42
They could add the technology, but part of my job is to make people aware of this. Most people, and I would definitely say 99% of the family law community, would have no idea that synthetic urine, number one is so accessible, and number two, that it actually passes all normal, standard validity tests. So, really, I would say the bigger laboratories that are primarily used haven’t had the demand or their customers coming to them and saying, “we need you to be able to do this”, and so they don’t change. That’s where I would say smaller, more innovative companies in any industry, that’s what we do. We have to go and look at how can we make the industry better? This is certainly a product that I get very passionate about, and I genuinely believe is a much better product than what the large majority of testing most industries are doing, but particularly the family law industry.
Krista Nash 46:41
You’re right that there’s a very low understanding of this. I only know so much because of my particular role, not as a family law attorney, but as a child advocate, and as dealing directly with the sobriety experts in our area, and getting a lot of information from them. As I am seeing a lot of these problems, I’ve got a pretty unique view on that. Most family attorneys, I think, would say, “I put them on SoberLink”. Even Backtrack, which is the kind of secondary, less expensive one that does the breathalyzers, people just don’t have any understanding of this. So, they would always be very surprised. Parents would be very surprised to know just how easy it is to get around this. It is terrifying to parents that are trying to be protective of their kids, because the risk to kids if these addicts are going to these extremes and a lot of times, they’ll shift, because alcohol is so much more easily detected by some of the tools we use. It’s shocking when you think there’s 72 or more different substances that somebody could get on that would be problematic, right? But we’re testing for all of those.
Tim Reid 47:45
Correct. Yes. I’ll just agree with that. And unfortunately, I don’t know if it’s anyone’s fault, but it’s just the lack of innovation regarding other drug testing, non alcohol based drugs. It has kind of limited what the industry and what anyone can do, and that’s where I’m very thankful to be here today just to purely raise awareness of what is out there. As you can imagine the laboratories that have the current market share and holding the status quo like they aren’t motivated to change because their systems and their laboratories are set up just to keep it changing over. We will be trying to educate as many people that are out there too that this is what’s out there. I will say that it will be cost prohibitive to some people, or maybe a lot of people, but there will be a lot of cases out there where, when you truly look at the cost benefit analysis that U-VERIFY and these more innovative services, while the sticker price might seem higher once you actually look at all the different costs, traveling to a collection site, time off work, missed parenting time, whatever it might be, it’s actually quite reasonable. I hope that listeners in the community over the next however many months and years, will begin to understand. It’s a great service, and I think there’s a lot of people that can benefit from it.
Krista Nash 49:17
Well, what have we not covered? We’ve covered a lot. Is there anything else you think we’ve missed that you think we should touch on?
Tim Reid 49:24
I would say specifically, we do a lot of testing on the criminal side, as well as with Child Protective Services and Department of Human and Health Services. From touching on the legal defensibility, Iknow I’ve kept saying it’s a legally defensible result. I would want your listeners and anyone else who listens to this to know that Pharmatech is both a SAMSHA and a cap-forensic drug testing accredited laboratory that isn’t the be-all and end-all, but the attorneys on the other side, on your side, would know maybe better than I do, that using a laboratory that is regularly audited for their internal processes, and how they handle and store specimens, is very important if you’re going to use result data to adjudicate custody battles, or whatever it might be. So, that’s a big part of where Phamatech is different in the market. On that aspect, turnaround times, as you mentioned, the case management system, which we’ve spoken about with the test randomizer, is all-inclusive. There are no extra costs for that.
Krista Nash 50:33
This info is, I’m sure, available. What’s the website?
Tim Reid 50:37
The lab’s main website is just www.phamatech.com, and that’s P, H, A, M, A, T, E, C, H, not pharma tech, it’s Phamatech. So there’s no R in there, .com, and then our website specific to the U-VERIFIED testing services is uverifiedtesting.com
Krista Nash 50:58
Okay, so we’ll link to those in our show notes and resources. I think it’s really interesting. I think that people are getting more creative about what substances they’re using. It’s a lot easier to cheat. It’s getting more and more widespread. It’s shocking and really scary for kids that these things are available to the level like you’re sharing. I know a lot about this, but you’re sharing some things I wasn’t aware of. I wasn’t aware of the temperature strips to keep it warm to a certain area, or the urine nozzle that makes it seem like it’s actually a stream. There are so many ways to cheat this, and it’s very sad, obviously, from my perspective and most people’s perspectives, that people are not willing to just prioritize sobriety or abstinence, or proper use of legal substances so that their children are safe. That’s the bottom line for why we’re talking about this. So, I really appreciate, from the seat of a child advocate, that you all are coming up with some ways to make this better and make one of the worst things for divorce cases and for the outcomes for children. We talk about this a lot on my podcast, but it is the co-parenting toxicity, not toxicity from a pharmacological perspective, but hatred and the inability to co-parent. That’s one of the worst things. The outcomes for children are not just based on how much somebody’s drinking alcohol or using a drug, but how ineffective their parents are together, and one of the key things that we have to work on is incremental trust building. So, people might be like, “Ah, who cares? It’s just about drug testing, alcohol testing”. No, it’s about way more than that. So, I just want to commend you all, from a trust building perspective, because if people are using this right, it really can create better co parenting and more trust, and therefore, not just routine safety for kids because somebody isn’t using it, but a lot broader solution-based things that can really help parents be better co-parents.
Tim Reid 52:53
If I can add to that, it’s a really good point that it’s very easy to view a test like U-VERIFY from a defensive point of view of like, “Oh, we’re trying to get you and catch you”, anything like that; but, you’ve touched on a really good point. We actually view it as the opposite. If you’re specific to the family law community, if you’re in a in a high conflict case, and you’re a husband, a wife, or a co-parent, and you don’t trust the other individual who is testing, even if they are not doing anything wrong, they should want to use this test, because there can be no question about, “oh, well, yeah, you went and did a test, but you probably paid off the collector near the observer at the collection site”, or, “how do we know you actually got observed? The person could have just signed the form saying that they observed you, but you didn’t”. We have had past cases, and I actually am managing a family law case right now that’s very high conflict between the parents. I would say that the parent that is having the allegations thrown at them is using our testing for that exact reason to kind of say, “Here are my results. I’m being compliant”. There are really no questions that way, and it’s trying to build that trust with the co-parent, but also the other attorneys, their own attorney, potentially, and predominantly their own child. So ,we definitely see it as a benefit, particularly for those individuals that are really trying to meet the criteria. Hopefully they will meet their requirements, but ultimately remain sober, if that’s what the plan is, to sort of say, “hey, there are no questions anymore”. As you’ve touched on really early in the podcast, the collection site is actually where a lot of errors can happen, and so by eliminating the collection site, if you can imagine right now, by using U-VERIFY, no one touches the specimen between me and the laboratory. So, we’re eliminating a large part of the process that traditionally causes a lot of errors and potential tampering. So, that’s another thing that I think your listeners would conceptually find interesting is if they start to think about it like that.
Krista Nash 55:01
I think it’s twofold. It’s potentially, really eliminating a lot of the potential problems so that we can protect kids better from somebody who is using substances and is therefore getting caught more appropriately, and can address that issue. Do you need to go to rehab? What do you need? How do we protect these kids? Can you be around the kids? It also does provide a better vehicle that eliminates some of the cat and mouse stuff, because you are eliminating some of those variables, which I can just tell you from live experience, right now, and in other cases, it is just a huge problem. So, I commend you for this, and I’m kind of, I’m excited that you’ve been able to be on the show and talk about what this looks like. I certainly can see cases that this would really benefit, and that I, as a child advocate, can say, “Hey, have you thought about U-VERIFY?” I hope people will listen and think about that. As you all continue to develop things, maybe come back on and we can talk about how it’s actually working in practice, or as you get more into the family law community, you can tell us more about what you’re seeing. I would welcome that kind of feedback back, because I think it really could be something that could really transform how we’re doing this, especially as technology improves and all those things. It makes me feel more confident, as somebody trying to protect kids, that we could do so much more testing and eliminate some of these problems. So, I really appreciate you being on today. Thanks for taking the time. We’ll hopefully be in touch if you come up with more things or other ideas or research you all have done, or anything like that. Please do reach out, because sometimes I have people on again to talk about an update about what new things come in.
Tim Reid 56:35
Not a problem. Thank you, Krista.
Krista Nash 56:37
All right. Well, thanks for being with me, and we will sign off.
Intro/Outro 56:40
Krista is licensed in Colorado and Wyoming. So if you are in those states and seek legal services, please feel free to reach out via ChildrenFirstFamilylaw.com that is our website where everyone can find additional resources to help navigate family law as always, be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.