More states have gone live with their direct integration with the FMCSA/NRCME but paper certificates continue to be valid for a few states (see bottom of this page for a list).
Cases of “lost in the void” exam results, those that can be seen in DOT/NRCME system, but never reach the local DMVs, are becoming rarer. We continue to work with clinics and examiners to help them troubleshoot such cases.
Options at the DMV Level: We also continue to educate examiners that States/DMVs have the ability to “pull” exam results from the National Registry and match against a driver. If the DOT’s push downstream to the state fails or fails to match a driver record at the state, this “pull” or search option is available to the DMV. Not all agents are aware of this and not all of them may entertain this request by the driver. However, searching on a driver’s license number and “pulling” their medical certificate from the National Registry is an option available at the State/DMV level and is often required (see below).
First Time Applicants: Another commonly reported problem is “driver not found” errors being thrown back for student or first time CDL/CLP applicants going through a DOT physical before their first commercial drivers license/permit is issued. Because these drivers aren’t licensed commercial drivers (yet) they may not exist in their state commercial driver database. The DOT itself and many examiners have confirmed that a “no-match found” error is quite normal for such cases and a “pull” (see above) while their application is being processed is an option available. Note: DOT guidance on new drivers and first time applicants suggests that you will always get an error and examiners must ‘revalidate’ their information. In other words you must submit the same correct information again as a ‘revalidation’ and only after a match fails. The examiner will have to do so on the NRCME website after they receive a mismatch notification. See this document for details (role of Medical Examiners in NRII)
Summary: Exams results that you see in the national registry are available for the States to pull even if the inital match between the DOT and the State fails.
Once again we remind all examiners that they should keep their NRCME account updated especially their email address since that is where the DOT system will send them state level rejection notices. The MedFiller system is NOT electronically notified of state level rejections and thus cannot help in such cases. In addition, when doing DOT physicals, the most critical fields (key driver identifiers) that must match exactly across the DOT and DMV systems are as follows:
a) License Number
b) License Issuing State
c) Date of Birth
d) Last Name (first five characters)
Even the slightest mismatch in the above is likely to lead to a rejection. Therefore we advise examiners do a physical cross check with the driver’s license when verifying their identity. More guidance on matching of key identifiers is available from the DOT and the various notices published by the NRCME are also available at the NRII learning cente
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