Building the Business Case for a Pre-Access Testing Program: A Decision Framework for Safety Managers and Finance Teams

Pre-access drug and alcohol testing requires every worker to return a negative result before entering a worksite and i’s among the most direct impairment controls available to employers in high-hazard industries. The barrier to implementation is rarely a safety rationale problem. Safety managers who understand the risk typically encounter resistance at the internal approval stage, where finance teams and senior leaders need a structured cost argument rather than a safety one.

The section 19 primary duty of care under the Safe Work Australia Model WHS Act requires employers to manage risks to workers and others so far as is reasonably practicable. That obligation does not specify testing as a mandatory control but it does require employers to demonstrate that the controls they have in place are proportionate to the risk. In high-hazard industries, impairment is a foreseeable and documented risk. The question a finance team should be asking is not whether the program costs money, but whether the cost of the program is smaller than the cost of the incidents it prevents. In almost every modelled scenario, it is.

The Financial Exposure of Unmanaged Impairment Risk Is Larger Than Most Finance Teams Realise

The starting point for any internal business case is the cost of the problem the program is designed to prevent. Safe Work Australia's Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025 puts the scale of that problem in concrete terms: there were 146,700 serious workers' compensation claims involving at least one week of working time lost in 2023–24, representing more than 400 serious claims lodged every day across Australia. Construction alone accounted for 12% of those claims; a disproportionate share relative to the industry's share of total filled jobs.

The cost distribution within those claims is where the financial argument becomes most compelling for a finance audience. Claims involving more than 13 weeks off work accounted for approximately 22% of total claims but represented 74.8% of total compensation payments, roughly $5.4 billion. A single serious incident that produces an extended claim does not cost the median, it costs a multiple of it. Mental health condition claims, now accounting for 12% of all serious claims, carried an average compensation payment of $67,400 and a median time lost of 35.7 weeks.

But these are direct costs only. Indirect costs such as investigation time, production downtime, subcontractor relationship disruption, increased insurance premiums and potential WHS prosecution are commonly estimated in WHS literature at three to four times the direct cost of an incident.

Source: Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025. Indirect cost estimates are modelled figures consistent with Safe Work Australia and Comcare guidance.

The financial case for a pre-access program does not requires a comparison between the cost of a plausible incident and the annual cost of the program. 

The Right Testing Technology Depends on Workforce Size, Site Layout and Throughput Requirements

Pre-access drug and alcohol testing is not a single product category. Three distinct technology tiers exist, and matching the right tier to the right site configuration determines both the program's effectiveness and its cost efficiency. Selecting the wrong tier, typically under-specifying for a large site or over-specifying for a small one, creates unnecessary cost or operational failure.

Tier 1: Handheld portable devices suit smaller sites, field operations, remote locations and situations where testing needs to move with the workforce rather than occur at a fixed point. A trained tester administers each test individually. Per-test costs are low and capital investment is minimal, but administration time per test is higher than the fixed-point alternatives. Oral fluid drug test kits calibrated to AS/NZS 4760:2019, such as the DrugSense DSO8 Plus V3 and the DrugSense OraScan Saliva Drug Test Cassette V5, are designed for the field conditions that characterise this tier delivering standard-compliant results in environments where laboratory access is not practical.

Tier 2: Wall-mounted fixed units suit medium-to-large sites with defined entry points and predictable daily throughput. Equipment sits permanently at a gatehouse or site office entry point, reducing the per-test administration burden and producing a consistent, documented result for every worker who passes through. The capital cost is higher than Tier 1 but the cost per test over the life of the equipment is lower, and the chain-of-custody documentation is more reliable. The Soberlive FRX is Andatech's wall-mounted breathalyser screening solution for this configuration. For organisations where the upfront capital cost of fixed-point equipment creates a budget cycle barrier, the financing arrangement available through Andatech's partnership with Finlease converts the capital expenditure into a predictable monthly operating cost, removing the need to wait for the next annual CAPEX approval round.

Tier 3: Integrated result management platforms apply across all site configurations where multiple testers, multiple locations or multi-contractor workforces create a data consolidation challenge. A platform at this tier connects every testing event to a centralised, audit-ready compliance record. Centralised drug and alcohol result management across multiple testing locations is what Andalink provides, operating alongside whichever device tier the site uses.

What a Pre-Access Testing Program Actually Costs and Why Not Having One Costs More

The cost model below presents estimated annual program costs across three workforce sizes, using a standard pre-access testing configuration. All figures in the program cost rows are modelled estimates based on typical market conditions as at 2025–26. They are not sourced data and must be verified against current Andatech pricing before use in any internal document.

For medium and large sites, the capital cost of Tier 2 equipment can be structured as a monthly operating expense through Andatech's financing arrangement with Finlease. Equipment finance options for workplace safety testing infrastructure are available through the Andatech website, where current terms and product scope are outlined. This converts what is often positioned as a CAPEX barrier into an OPEX line that sits within existing budget authority, a structurally different approval process for most finance teams.

The cost-of-doing-nothing comparator uses a single-incident scenario. A standard serious claim at the median compensation payout of $15,900 carries an estimated total incident cost (direct plus indirect) of $47,700 to $63,600 when the commonly cited three-to-four times indirect cost multiplier is applied. A single mental health condition claim at the $67,400 average compensation figure produces an estimated total incident cost of $202,200 to $269,600 using the same multiplier. Against these figures, the annual cost of a pre-access program at any workforce size is not a cost-centre argument, it’s a risk mitigation return argument.

A Testing Program Is Only as Defensible as Its Records

Pre-access testing generates value in two ways: it deters impaired workers from entering a site, and it creates a documented compliance record that supports an employer's position in a WHS investigation, a Fair Work proceeding or a workers compensation dispute. The second function is as important as the first, and it depends entirely on the quality of the program's documentation.

Chain of custody in a pre-access testing context requires an unbroken, documented record linking a specific worker to a specific test result at a specific time, collected by an identified tester using a specified method under the relevant Australian Standard. A result without that chain of documentation is a result that can be challenged. In a WHS investigation or legal proceeding, a challenged result is often an inadmissible one.

Paper-based record systems fail on multi-contractor sites for predictable reasons: inconsistency across testers, gaps in documentation when volumes are high, inability to produce a complete site-wide record at short notice and no capacity to identify patterns across a large or dispersed workforce. These gaps become visible precisely when they matter most: under investigation, when a dispute arises or when an insurer requests a compliance record.

A compliant pre-access program's chain-of-custody documentation must capture the following at a minimum:

1. Worker identity, confirmed against site access credentials at the time of testing
2. Date, time and location of the test
3. Identity of the tester administering the test
4. Device type and calibration status
5. Test result, including the specific substance panels screened and any non-negative findings
6. Follow-up action taken, including the worker's work restriction status and any support referral made

Drug and alcohol test results are sensitive personal information under the Privacy Act 1988. The testing program must include documented worker consent procedures, defined access controls on who can view results, and a data retention and destruction policy consistent with the organisation's broader privacy obligations.

Audit-ready drug and alcohol result management with chain-of-custody documentation across all device tiers is what Andalink is built to provide. For multi-site or multi-contractor operations, the platform eliminates the gap between a testing event occurring and a defensible record existing.

A Pre-Access Program Works Best When It Sits Inside an Existing Policy, Not Alongside It

Organisations that already have a drug and alcohol policy sometimes treat pre-access testing as a separate program to be created and managed independently. That approach creates the duplication and procedural conflict it is trying to avoid. Pre-access testing is a specific control measure within a drug and alcohol management framework — it sits inside the existing policy as an operational mechanism, not alongside it as a parallel document.

The existing policy needs to address pre-access testing explicitly in four areas: the condition of site entry (that a non-negative result prevents access), the testing method and the standard it operates under (AS/NZS 4760:2019 for oral fluid, AS 3547:2019 for breath alcohol), the consequence of a non-negative result and the support pathway that follows. A policy that does not address these points cannot support a consistent, defensible pre-access program regardless of the quality of the testing equipment.

Workforce consultation is a regulatory requirement, not a best-practice recommendation. Under the Model WHS Act, workers must be consulted on changes to health and safety procedures that affect them directly. Introducing a pre-access testing requirement is such a change. The consultation process (what was discussed, who participated and what outcome was reached) should be documented before the program goes live.

The following integration checklist supports the policy review process:

1. Confirm the existing drug and alcohol policy specifies pre-access testing as a condition of site entry for all workers, regardless of employment relationship
2. Confirm the policy references AS/NZS 4760:2019 (oral fluid) and AS 3547:2019 (breath alcohol) as the applicable testing standards
3. Document the consultation process with workers and health and safety representatives before implementing the program
4. Specify in subcontractor agreements that pre-access testing applies to all workers accessing the site, including employees of subcontractors and labour hire workers
5. Connect the non-negative result response process to the existing employee support and Employee Assistance Programme pathways already documented in the policy
6. Confirm data retention, access control and consent procedures are consistent with the organisation's Privacy Act obligations
7. Review the WHS management plan to position drug and alcohol management as an integrated component rather than a standalone annex

Andatech's resources on what a defensible drug and alcohol policy includes provide a practical starting point for organisations reviewing their current documentation against these requirements.

The Decision Framework in Summary

A pre-access testing program built on this framework moves through five decision points in sequence: quantify the financial exposure of unmanaged impairment risk using sourced incident cost data; select the technology configuration that matches the site's workforce size, layout and throughput; model the annual program cost against a single-incident cost comparator; specify the chain-of-custody and data management requirements that make the program legally defensible; and map the program explicitly into the existing WHS policy framework rather than creating a parallel document.

Each of those decisions has a commercially grounded answer. The program cost is smaller than the incident cost at every workforce size modelled. The technology tier is matched to site configuration, not to an arbitrary preference. The documentation requirements are defined by the testing standards and the legal context in which records are likely to be used. WHS regulators and insurers are applying increasing scrutiny to the adequacy of proactive impairment controls in high-hazard industries. A pre-access program implemented before an incident creates a demonstrably more defensible position than one constructed in response to one.

Speak with the Andatech team about pre-access testing for your site

Andatech supplies oral fluid drug test kits, breath alcohol testing devices and cloud-based result management solutions suited to worksites of every size. For organisations where upfront capital cost is a barrier, Andatech's financing arrangement through Finlease converts the cost of wall-mounted breathalyser systems into a predictable monthly operating expense with no CAPEX approval cycle required.