A decade in the making: Georgia DDS to receive driver medical status directly from FMCSA

February 6, 2025

The State of Georgia is one step closer to implementing a final rule published in 2015 to streamline the medical certification process for drivers who hold commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) or permits (CLPs). Effective February 24, 2025, the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS) will no longer accept medical certificates from drivers.

Under a new process, certified medical examiners (CMEs) will input the driver’s medical information into the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners (NRCME) and then the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will transmit it to DDS. Drivers and their carriers should allow 48 business hours from the medical examination before checking the status of new or updated medical certifications via DDS Online Services.

Prior to the deadline

No later than Wednesday, February 19, 2025, CDL and CLP drivers licensed in Georgia are instructed to submit current supporting medical documentation to DDS via email, an upload through the department’s Online Services, or in-person presentation at a local Customer Service Center.

What is transmitted from FMCSA to DDS?

The new process eliminates the need for states to manually enter specific data elements onto a driver’s motor vehicle record. Instead, FMCSA will communicate the following information to DDS from the NRCME:

Driver identification,
Examination results,
Restrictions, and
Medical variances.

Why are procedures changing?

FMCSA published a rulemaking in 2015 that connects the state driver’s licensing agencies (SDLAs) directly to NRCME. This transmission streamlines the process and accounts for every driver medical examination, including those where the CME medically disqualifies the driver.

The original implementation date was June 22, 2018, but it was pushed back to 2021 and again to 2025 to help accommodate technology development to transmit and receive information from the NRCME to the SDLAs. The current implementation date requires all SDLAs to be connected to NRCME no later than June 23, 2025.

Have medical certification requirements changed?

Drivers who operate commercial motor vehicles are still required to be medically certified through an examination by a CME. The medical examination and its standards remain the same. What has changed is recordkeeping. The only the means of communicating CDL/CLP holders’ examination results to the SDLA is through FMCSA’s data transmission.

Publish Date

February 6, 2025

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Industry News

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