How to Choose a Medical Courier: RFP Template and Vendor Scorecard
Most advice on choosing a medical courier is a list of ten things to look for. This is the other half: the twenty questions to ask, what good evidence looks like for each, the weights to score them with, and an RFP template and scorecard you can issue this week.
Published
The four questions buyers actually type
Short answers first. The rest of the guide is the detail and the tools behind them.
What should a lab look for in a medical courier?
Evidence, not claims. A custody record you can audit for any specimen, temperature data for the bands you ship, coverage of your hardest sites by named drivers, training records that match what the drivers actually handle, a straight answer on HIPAA, tracking that reaches your LIS, and a continuity plan that has been used. Price comes last, on a schedule you wrote.
Is a medical courier a HIPAA business associate?
Not automatically. HHS treats an organization that merely transports protected health information, without accessing it other than on a random or infrequent basis as the transport requires, as a conduit rather than a business associate, and says the exception is narrow. A courier that stores identified specimens in its own facility, handles requisitions or runs a tracking portal holding patient data has stepped outside it and should sign a business associate agreement.
What should a medical courier RFP include?
Your site list with hours and volumes, the specimen types and temperature bands, service levels with KPI definitions, the compliance evidence every bidder must attach, your integration and reporting requirements, a fixed pricing schedule, and the weighted criteria you will score against. The template on this page has all of it.
How do you compare medical courier companies fairly?
Ask every vendor the same twenty questions in the same order, score each answer 0 to 4 on how much evidence came back, weight the eight categories, and compare totals only when every question is scored for every vendor. A category scored zero throughout is a disqualifier whatever the total.
Score the evidence, not the brochure
Every medical courier website says the same things: HIPAA compliant, temperature controlled, real-time tracking, trained drivers. The words are free. What separates providers is whether they can put a record in front of you, for a shipment you chose, that proves each claim for your routes, your sites and your specimen types.
Transport is worth this effort because it is a large share of the turnaround time your clinicians see. In a College of American Pathologists study of 722 institutions, specimen transit accounted for about a third of total stat turnaround time, and when couriers carried the specimens the median transit time matched the laboratory's own testing time[17]. A 2020 Q-Probes study found that most institutions do not monitor pre-analytical time at all[18]. The courier is the one part of that interval a laboratory buys from outside, so it is the part a contract can fix.
So the method here is simple. Ask every vendor the same twenty questions in the same order. Score each answer on how much evidence came back, 0 to 4. Weight the eight categories by how much a failure in that category costs a laboratory. Compare totals only when every vendor has been scored on every question, and treat any category scored zero throughout as a disqualifier. It is the weighted best-value tradeoff public procurement has used for decades[23], and the structure a state health department laboratory used for its own specimen courier RFP, with electronic chain of custody as the pass-or-fail gate[24].
| Score | Meaning | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | No evidence | No answer, or marketing copy only. |
| 1 | Claimed | The vendor says it does this, with no document, record or demonstration. |
| 2 | Partly evidenced | A policy or sample exists but is incomplete, out of date, or does not cover your routes, bands or sites. |
| 3 | Evidenced | Current documents and real records for your scope that stand up to a reading. |
| 4 | Evidenced and demonstrated | As 3, plus you saw it working: a live tracking session, a site visit, a logger trace, or a reference confirmed it. |
Eight criteria and the weight each one carries
The weights are defaults for a clinical laboratory buying scheduled routes plus STAT. They are editable in the scorecard; the reasoning is what matters.
Chain of custody and tracking
Your accreditor asks you, not the courier, to prove every remote-site specimen was dispatched, received and in what condition. If the record is weak, nothing else on the sheet matters.
Temperature control and data
A specimen that spent two hours outside its band is a rejected specimen you will not find out about until the result is wrong.
Coverage, speed and cutoffs
Routes have to fit stability windows and site hours, including the sites that are hardest to serve. STAT and next-flight-out are where networks fail.
Compliance evidence
Training records, the bloodborne pathogen program, the HIPAA position and insurance. Each is a document the vendor either has or does not have.
Integration and reporting
Tracking data that lives only in the courier's portal still has to be re-keyed. On-time reports are only useful if you agreed how on-time is defined.
Performance history and references
Past performance with laboratories like yours is the best predictor available before go-live.
Continuity and capacity
Driver no-shows, vehicle failures, weather and volume surges happen to every network. The question is what happens next.
Commercial terms
Price last, and only on a like-for-like schedule. A cheap per-stop rate with STAT surcharges and accessorials is not cheap.
Twenty questions to ask a medical courier before you sign
Each one comes with what a good answer looks like, because the question is only half the test.
AChain of custody and tracking20% of the score
- 1
Show us the chain-of-custody record for one specimen from pickup to our receiving bench: who scanned it, when and where, and its condition on receipt.
Good evidence: A real export, not a screenshot of a form. Barcode scans at every handoff, a time of dispatch and a time of receipt, a condition field, and the driver's identity. This is the record CAP GEN.40530 expects a laboratory to hold for specimens from remote sites, including those carried by a contracted courier[1], and CLIA requires the laboratory to document the date and time it receives every specimen[15].
- 2
What does your tracking show our accessioning team in real time, and through what channel: portal, API or a feed into our LIS?
Good evidence: A live session during the evaluation, stop-level status and ETA, and exceptions pushed to a named person rather than left for someone to notice.
- 3
How do you reconcile what each site handed over against what we received, and who gets the discrepancy report and how quickly?
Good evidence: A manifest or scan count at pickup, a reconciliation at delivery, and a written notification time for missed pickups and short manifests.
BTemperature control and data15% of the score
- 4
For each temperature band you will carry for us (controlled room temperature, 2 to 8 °C, frozen, dry ice), show the shipper qualification and a logger trace from a recent shipment.
Good evidence: Data per band from a lane like yours, in summer and winter conditions, and the calibration status of the loggers that produced it. CLSI published its first consensus guideline for evaluating courier systems, containers and data loggers in February 2026[16]; ask whether the vendor's program follows it. The bands themselves are covered in our cold chain guide.
- 5
When a logger shows an excursion in transit, who is told, how fast, and who decides whether the specimen is still acceptable?
Good evidence: An excursion procedure that notifies the laboratory within a stated time and leaves the acceptability decision with the laboratory, with the record retained.
- 6
Are vehicles, holding areas and transfer hubs temperature-monitored, and can you produce those records for a date we choose?
Good evidence: Continuous monitoring with alarms rather than a thermometer checked at shift change, and records retrievable for a random date.
CCoverage, speed and cutoffs15% of the score
- 7
Map your coverage against our site list. For each site, who drives: your own employed drivers, contracted drivers, a partner network, or air?
Good evidence: A site-by-site answer with percentages. Partner coverage is not disqualifying, but it has to carry the same training, tracking and custody standards, and you should know where it applies.
- 8
What are your STAT and after-hours response commitments, and what were the measured response times last quarter?
Good evidence: A commitment in minutes for pickup after the call, 24/7 dispatch reachable by a human, and last quarter's actual distribution, not the average.
- 9
For next-flight-out work, are you a TSA Indirect Air Carrier or do you tender through one, and who packs and declares UN3373 and dry ice for air?
Good evidence: IAC status or a named IAC partner, since an airline may only accept cargo from specific parties under 49 CFR 1544.205[11], and staff who can show how they pack and declare to IATA Packing Instruction 650[13], with the US hazmat training records that dry ice and any Category A shipment by air require. For inbound international specimens, add the CDC import permit position: diagnostic specimens not known or suspected to be infectious are exempt with a certification statement[14]. Our next-flight-out page explains what stops a specimen flying.
- 10
What are your route cutoffs relative to our specimen stability windows, and will you redesign routes to fit them?
Good evidence: A willingness to build the route around the specimen rather than the van: for example, a pickup that lands serum at the bench inside the window your assays need.
DCompliance evidence15% of the score
- 11
Provide the training records for the drivers and dispatch staff who will handle our specimens: documented UN3373 Category B training, and the full DOT hazmat program where they also handle Category A, dry ice by air or regulated medical waste.
Good evidence: Category B packages prepared under 49 CFR 173.199 are excepted from the rest of the hazmat rules, but paragraph (e) still requires everyone who offers or transports them to know that section's requirements[6], and a dated training record is the practical proof. Once a courier handles Category A, dry ice by air or regulated medical waste, the 49 CFR 172.704 program applies in full: general awareness, function-specific, safety and security training, recurrent at least every three years, with records[8].
- 12
Show us your bloodborne pathogens exposure determination for drivers and, where drivers are covered, the exposure control plan, annual training records and the hepatitis B vaccination offer.
Good evidence: OSHA 29 CFR 1910.1030 applies to employees with reasonably anticipated contact with blood or other potentially infectious materials[10]. A driver who only carries sealed, triple-packaged specimens may be determined to have no occupational exposure; one who handles leaking packages, opens coolers or collects at draw sites usually does. Ask for the determination in writing, then the plan and records that follow from it.
- 13
Will you sign a business associate agreement, and in which parts of your service do you handle protected health information beyond carrying a sealed package?
Good evidence: A clear answer. HHS treats a courier that merely transports PHI as a conduit, not a business associate, and the exception is narrow[2][3]. A vendor that stores identified specimens, handles requisitions or runs a tracking portal holding patient data has stepped outside it, and should sign a BAA[4] and describe how it would notify you of a breach; the rule's outer limit is 60 days[5], and most laboratories contract for far less.
- 14
Provide certificates of insurance (auto liability, general liability, cargo and workers' compensation) with limits, and your driver vetting standard.
Good evidence: Current certificates naming your organization, limits that fit the value and risk of what you ship, and a vetting standard covering motor vehicle records at hire and every year, background checks and drug testing for employed and contracted drivers alike. The federal rules for larger commercial vehicles are the benchmark[22], even where they do not legally apply to a courier's cars and vans.
EIntegration and reporting10% of the score
- 15
Can your tracking integrate with our LIS or ordering portal, so pickups are requested from our system and status events arrive in it? Show one integration you run today.
Good evidence: A live integration with a laboratory client, the interface standard used (HL7, API or file), and who owns and retains the data. See how LIS integration carries courier events.
- 16
Show us last quarter's on-time report for a comparable client: how on-time is defined, the exception categories, and the root causes.
Good evidence: A definition you can audit (window, stop-level or delivery-level, how STAT is counted), a report that includes the misses, and evidence that root causes changed something.
FPerformance history and references10% of the score
- 17
Give us three references at clinical laboratories or hospitals of our size with at least twelve months of service, and one client you lost in the past two years and why.
Good evidence: References you can call who will talk about a bad week, and a straight answer on the lost account.
GContinuity and capacity10% of the score
- 18
What happens when a driver does not show, a vehicle fails, a route is cut off by weather, or our volume doubles in a month? Show the continuity plan and an example of it being used.
Good evidence: A written plan with named backups, spare capacity figures, and a recent incident where it was exercised and reviewed.
- 19
What share of our volume would depend on a single driver, vehicle or hub, and what is the backup for each?
Good evidence: A concentration figure and a named backup for each single point of failure, including subcontractors held to the same standards.
HCommercial terms5% of the score
- 20
Complete the pricing schedule in this RFP exactly as structured, state the contract term and exit provisions, and propose service credits for missed service levels.
Good evidence: A like-for-like schedule: per stop, per route, per mile, STAT and after-hours surcharges, next-flight-out pass-through, fuel, accessorials and minimums, so bids can be compared on total cost.
The same twenty questions are laid out in the printable PDF, and as scored rows in the Excel scorecard.
What to require with every proposal, and why
Each item is a document the vendor either has or does not have. Make them appendices to the proposal, and score a missing item as zero.
| Item | What to provide | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Specimen tracking record | A sample chain-of-custody export for one shipment: dispatch time, each handoff, receipt time, condition on receipt. | CAP GEN.40530[1]; CLIA 42 CFR 493.1242(b)[15] |
| Training records | Documented UN3373 Category B training for drivers and dispatchers; the full 49 CFR 172.704 record (recurrent within three years) where Category A, dry ice by air or regulated medical waste are handled. | 49 CFR 173.199(e)[6]; 49 CFR 172.704[8] |
| Category B packaging competence | Procedure and training for UN3373 triple packaging; who packs and marks shipments. | 49 CFR 173.199[6]; IATA PI 650 for air[13] |
| Bloodborne pathogens program | Written exposure determination for drivers; where drivers are covered, the exposure control plan, annual training records and hepatitis B vaccination offer. | OSHA 29 CFR 1910.1030[10] |
| HIPAA position | Whether the vendor is a business associate for this scope, a draft BAA, and the breach-notification procedure. | HHS OCR FAQ 245[2]; 45 CFR 160.103, 164.504(e)[4], 164.410[5] |
| Air cargo status | TSA Indirect Air Carrier certificate, or the named IAC through which air shipments are tendered. | 49 CFR 1544.205[11]; 49 CFR Part 1548[12] |
| Temperature program | Shipper qualification per band, logger calibration certificates, a recent logger trace, excursion procedure. | Your assay stability requirements; CLSI PRE06[16] |
| Insurance | Certificates for auto liability, general liability, cargo and workers' compensation, with limits. | Contractual; FMCSA minimums are a floor[21] |
| Driver vetting | Written standard for motor vehicle records at hire and annually, background checks, drug and alcohol testing, applied to employed and contracted drivers. | Contractual; 49 CFR 391.23 and 391.25 as the benchmark[22] |
| Continuity plan | Business continuity plan with backup drivers, vehicles and hubs, and a record of a recent exercise or incident. | Contractual; ISO 22301 is the reference framework[25] |
| Incident history | Lost, damaged and late-specimen counts for the past twelve months for a comparable client, with root causes. | Contractual |
Three items need a word of caution. Category B is a lighter regime than most vendor pages suggest: packages prepared under 49 CFR 173.199 are excepted from the rest of the hazmat rules, so the question is whether the drivers can show they know that section, and whether the full training program is in place for the dry ice, Category A and medical waste work that does fall under it[6][8]. The materials-of-trade exception in 49 CFR 173.6 belongs to private carriers whose main business is not transportation, which covers a laboratory moving its own specimens in its own vehicles, not a for-hire courier[9]. Samples that meet the routine-testing exceptions in 49 CFR 173.134(b) sit outside the rules altogether, but that classification is the shipper's to make and document[7]. And the HIPAA conduit exception is real but narrow: the moment a courier holds identified specimens in its own facility, keys requisition data or runs a portal with patient details, it is a business associate.
Packaging detail is in the UN3373 guide; what CLIA and CAP ask of the laboratory itself is in CLIA vs CAP vs COLA.
Running the RFP
Ten to fourteen weeks from issue to go-live, if the site list exists before week one.
- 1
Write the site list before the RFP
Every site with hours, pickup windows, daily and peak volumes and temperature bands. Half of a bad courier contract is a site list the vendor never saw.
- 2
Issue the RFP with the fixed pricing schedule
Give vendors two to four weeks. Take questions in writing for the first week and publish every answer to every bidder.
- 3
Score the written responses
Twenty questions, 0 to 4 each, weighted by category. Do it independently with two or three scorers, then reconcile.
- 4
Shortlist, then see it
Two or three vendors get a live tracking session on a real shipment, a site visit to the hub or dispatch, and the logger traces you asked for.
- 5
Call the references, including the lost one
Ask about the worst week, the STAT that went wrong, and what the courier did about it.
- 6
Negotiate on the schedule you wrote
Best and final offers on the same line items, with service credits attached to the KPI definitions.
- 7
Run in parallel before you cut over
Two to four weeks alongside the incumbent on the hardest routes, with custody and temperature records reviewed daily.
Price last, on a schedule you wrote
Courier pricing is where comparisons go wrong. One vendor quotes per stop, another per route, a third bundles STAT into a monthly fee, and none of them mentions wait time until the first invoice. The RFP template fixes the schedule so every bid lands on the same lines:
- Scheduled route, per route per day
- Scheduled stop, per stop
- On-demand pickup, business hours
- STAT pickup, with response commitment
- After-hours and weekend surcharge
- Mileage beyond the included radius
- Temperature-controlled handling, by band
- Next-flight-out pass-through plus handling
- Dry ice and packaging supplies
- Wait time after the grace period
- Fuel surcharge method and index
- Monthly minimum and onboarding fees
Then attach service credits to the KPI definitions below, so a missed service level costs the vendor something other than an apology.
KPI definitions to put in the agreement
A service level without a definition is a conversation, not a commitment.
| KPI | Definition | Target |
|---|---|---|
| On-time pickup | Pickups inside the agreed window at the site, as a percentage of scheduled pickups. State the window. | 99% or better on scheduled routes |
| On-time delivery | Deliveries to the laboratory inside the agreed window. Count STAT separately. | 99% or better; STAT as a time distribution |
| STAT response time | Minutes from request to driver arrival. Report the median and the 95th percentile, not the mean. | 95th percentile inside the commitment |
| Custody record completeness | Shipments with a complete scan chain (pickup, every handoff, receipt, condition). | 100% |
| Temperature excursion rate | Monitored shipments with a reading outside the band beyond the agreed tolerance. | Reported per band; every excursion notified |
| Exception notification time | Minutes from an exception (missed pickup, delay, excursion, damage) to notification of your named contact. | Typically under 30 minutes |
| Missed pickup rate | Scheduled pickups not made on the day, with cause. | Trending to zero; every miss root-caused |
| Lost or damaged specimens | Specimens lost, leaked or damaged in transit, as a count and a rate. | Zero tolerance; each one reviewed |
Turnaround time distributions are skewed, which is why Hawkins' review recommends reporting the outlier rate or a high percentile rather than an average[20]; the STAT and exception rows above follow that advice. Temperature monitoring earns its row: one laboratory network that put time and temperature loggers on every courier run cut transports above 25 °C by about 80 percent, and the differences in potassium, ALT and APTT results between its distant and nearby collection sites disappeared[19].
Eight answers that should end the conversation
The custody record is a paper form the driver fills in, or a portal screenshot with no timestamps.
Temperature evidence is a brochure claim with no logger data for your bands or lanes.
"HIPAA compliant" appears everywhere, but nobody can say whether the company is a business associate for your scope or produce a BAA.
Training records exist for the office, not for the drivers on your routes, or they do not match what the drivers actually handle.
On-time is quoted as a single percentage with no definition, no window and no exception report.
Coverage of your hardest sites turns out to be a partner network the vendor has never audited.
The STAT commitment is an average, not a distribution.
Pricing arrives in the vendor's own format rather than your schedule, so bids cannot be compared.
Send us the same twenty questions
We wrote this toolkit because we would rather be scored on evidence than on adjectives. DS2 runs a medical courier network across all 50 states, moving more than 400,000 shipments a month with 99.7% on-time delivery, GPS tracking, temperature monitoring where the specimen needs it, and chain-of-custody records at every handoff, all visible in the LNK2DS2 portal or delivered into your LIS through our integration team. Our drivers are hazmat-trained for UN3373 shipments, air work is tendered as a TSA Indirect Air Carrier through our next-flight-out service, and we sign business associate agreements where the scope calls for one. Ask us for the custody export, the logger trace and the on-time report for a client like you; that is what the questions are for.
Medical courier selection questions
How do you choose a medical courier for a laboratory?
Write down your sites, volumes, specimen types and temperature bands first. Then ask every candidate the same twenty questions, score the evidence they produce rather than the claims they make, weight custody and tracking, temperature, coverage and compliance above price, and insist on a live tracking demonstration and references before award. The RFP template and scorecard on this page are built for that process.
Which courier offers the best specimen tracking?
The one that can show you, for a shipment you choose, every scan from pickup to receipt with timestamps, location, driver and condition on receipt, and can deliver those events into your LIS rather than leaving them in its own portal. Brand names matter less than whether that record exists and whether you can audit it. CAP GEN.40530 expects the laboratory to hold exactly that record for specimens from remote sites, including those carried by a contracted courier.
How do you compare medical specimen transport companies?
On evidence, in the same order, with the same weights. Send each company the same RFP, score each of the twenty questions 0 to 4, weight the eight categories (custody and tracking 20%, temperature 15%, coverage 15%, compliance 15%, integration 10%, references 10%, continuity 10%, price 5%), and compare totals only once every vendor has been scored on every question.
Is a medical courier a HIPAA business associate?
It depends on what the courier does. HHS guidance says an organization that merely transports protected health information, without accessing it other than on a random or infrequent basis as needed to perform the transport, is a conduit and not a business associate, and that the exception is narrow. A courier that stores identified specimens in its own facility, handles or keys requisition data, or operates a tracking portal holding patient information is doing more than transport and should sign a BAA that meets 45 CFR 164.504(e). HHS has not written courier-specific guidance, so ask the vendor to state its position in writing and have counsel confirm it.
Do couriers need DOT hazmat training to carry blood samples?
Most clinical specimens travel as UN3373 Biological Substance, Category B. Packages prepared under 49 CFR 173.199 are excepted from the rest of the hazardous materials rules, but paragraph (e) still requires anyone who offers or transports them to know that section's requirements, which in practice means documented training. The full 49 CFR 172.704 program, with recurrent training every three years and retained records, applies once the courier also handles Category A substances, dry ice shipped by air or regulated medical waste. Samples that fall under the exceptions in 49 CFR 173.134(b), such as routine testing with a low probability of infection, are outside the rules altogether, but that classification belongs to the shipper and should be written down.
What insurance should a medical courier carry?
Auto liability, general liability, cargo and workers' compensation, with certificates naming your organization. The federal minimum for for-hire property carriers is $750,000 of public liability at 10,001 lbs GVWR and above, lighter for-hire fleets with operating authority file $300,000, and there is no federal cargo insurance requirement for specimens at all. Treat those as floors. Set contractual limits against the value and consequences of what you ship, including the cost of recollection.
What is a reasonable on-time rate for a medical courier?
Ask for 99% or better on scheduled routes, but only after you have defined the window, whether it is measured at pickup or delivery, and how STAT is counted. Then ask for the exception report, because the 1% is where specimens are lost. An undefined 99.5% is worth less than a defined 98% with root causes attached.
Should a lab use one courier or several?
One accountable provider with proven backup capacity usually beats several providers with none, because custody, tracking and reporting stay in one system and one phone call. The exception is geography: if no single network covers your furthest sites with its own drivers, a primary provider that manages vetted partners under the same standards is better than you managing them yourself.
What is the best courier for a hospital shipping diagnostic specimens internationally?
One that can tender as, or through, a TSA Indirect Air Carrier, pack and declare UN3373 and dry ice to IATA Packing Instruction 650 with trained staff, handle customs and the CDC import permit rules for inbound specimens (diagnostic specimens not known or suspected to be infectious are exempt with a certification statement), and track the shipment door to door across every handoff. Ask the same twenty questions and add a worked example of an international lane you ship today.
How long does a medical courier RFP take?
Plan on ten to fourteen weeks from issue to go-live: two to four weeks for proposals, two to three for scoring, demonstrations and references, two for contracting, and two to four for route validation and a parallel run. The site list and the pricing schedule should exist before week one.
References
Citations checked November 2026. Regulations change; confirm against the current CFR text and your accreditor's checklist edition. This guide is general guidance for laboratory buyers, not legal advice.
- 1.College of American Pathologists, Laboratory General Checklist (2025 edition, released December 2025), GEN.40530 Specimen Tracking: a tracking system and record for specimens submitted from remote sites, with time of dispatch and receipt and condition on receipt, applying to couriers within the laboratory organization or contracted by it.
- 2.HHS Office for Civil Rights, HIPAA FAQ 245: organizations such as the US Postal Service and certain private couriers that act merely as conduits for protected health information are not business associates; a conduit transports information but does not access it other than on a random or infrequent basis as necessary to perform the transportation service.
- 3.HHS Office for Civil Rights, Business Associates guidance: the conduit exception is limited to entities that only provide transmission services for PHI, including temporary storage incident to transmission; entities that access PHI on a regular or frequent basis are not conduits.
- 4.45 CFR 160.103 (definition of business associate), 164.502(e) (satisfactory assurances documented in a written contract) and 164.504(e) (required contents of a business associate agreement).
- 5.45 CFR 164.410: a business associate must notify the covered entity of a breach of unsecured PHI without unreasonable delay and in no case later than 60 calendar days after discovery.
- 6.49 CFR 173.199: Category B infectious substances (UN3373). Triple packaging, 1.2 m drop capability, 95 kPa pressure test for air, marking; paragraph (a) excepts shipments prepared under the section from the rest of the hazardous materials regulations, and paragraph (e) requires each person who offers or transports them to know the section's requirements.
- 7.49 CFR 173.134: Division 6.2 definitions and exceptions, including samples transported for routine testing with a low probability of being infectious.
- 8.49 CFR 172.704: hazmat employee training (general awareness, function-specific, safety, security awareness), completed within 90 days, recurrent at least once every three years, with records retained. 49 CFR 171.8 defines a hazmat employee to include anyone who loads, unloads, handles or transports hazardous materials.
- 9.49 CFR 173.6 and 171.8: the materials of trade exception applies to hazardous materials carried by a private motor carrier in direct support of a principal business other than transportation.
- 10.OSHA, 29 CFR 1910.1030 Bloodborne Pathogens: applies to all occupational exposure to blood or other potentially infectious materials; written exposure control plan reviewed annually, training at assignment and at least annually, hepatitis B vaccination offered.
- 11.49 CFR 1544.205(e): an aircraft operator may accept cargo loaded in the United States only from the shipper, an aircraft operator, a foreign air carrier, an indirect air carrier operating under a TSA security program, or a certified cargo screening facility.
- 12.49 CFR Part 1548, Indirect Air Carrier Security: approved security program (1548.5) and the known shipper program (1548.17); TSA Cargo Programs page on the IACSSP and Known Shipper Management System.
- 13.IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations, 67th edition (2026), Packing Instruction 650 for UN3373; 68th edition takes effect January 1, 2027. 49 CFR 171.22 authorizes use of the ICAO Technical Instructions in the United States with US training requirements still applying.
- 14.42 CFR 71.54 and the CDC Import Permit Program: a permit is required to import infectious biological agents and infectious substances; diagnostic specimens not known or suspected to be infectious are exempt when accompanied by an importer certification statement.
- 15.42 CFR 493.1242: written policies for conditions of specimen transportation and for acceptability and rejection (paragraph (a)); the laboratory must document the date and time it receives a specimen (paragraph (b)).
- 16.CLSI PRE06, Evaluation of External Transport Systems, 1st edition (February 2026): courier systems, storage and transport containers, portable incubators and data loggers.
- 17.Howanitz PJ, Steindel SJ, Cembrowski GS, Long TA. Emergency department stat test turnaround times: a College of American Pathologists Q-Probes study for potassium and hemoglobin. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 1992;116(2):122-128. Specimen transit accounted for about one third of total turnaround time.
- 18.Procop GW, Nelson SK, Blond BJ, Souers RJ, Massie LW. The impact of transit times on the detection of bacterial pathogens in blood cultures: a CAP Q-Probes study of 36 institutions. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2020;144(5):564-571.
- 19.Zaninotto M, Tasinato A, Padoan A, et al. An integrated system for monitoring the quality of sample transportation. Clin Biochem. 2012;45(9):688-690; and Effects of sample transportation on commonly requested laboratory tests. Clin Chem Lab Med. 2012;50(10):1755-1760.
- 20.Hawkins RC. Laboratory turnaround time. Clin Biochem Rev. 2007;28(4):179-194.
- 21.49 CFR 387.9, 387.3 and 387.303, and the FMCSA insurance filing requirements chart: $750,000 minimum public liability for for-hire property carriers at 10,001 lbs GVWR and above; $300,000 filing for lighter for-hire fleets holding operating authority; no federal cargo insurance requirement for property other than household goods.
- 22.49 CFR 391.23 and 391.25: motor vehicle record from each licensing state within 30 days of hire and at least every 12 months thereafter (applies to commercial motor vehicles; used here as a benchmark).
- 23.Federal Acquisition Regulation 15.101-1 (tradeoff process) and 15.304 (evaluation factors): all evaluation factors and their relative importance stated in the solicitation; price evaluated in every source selection.
- 24.State of Ohio, Department of Administrative Services, RFP CSP906418 Medical Specimen Courier Services (2017): an example of a public specimen courier RFP with weighted scoring (technical 625, cost 300 of 1,000 points) and electronic chain-of-custody tracking as a mandatory requirement.
- 25.ISO 22301:2019, Security and resilience. Business continuity management systems. Requirements.
Running a courier RFP? Send it to us.
We answer all twenty questions with the records attached. No commitment, and we reply within 24 business hours.