Collection kits for interstate and international clients

Kits go to a practitioner rather than to a home address, because independent verification of whose hair it is forms part of the evidence. That single step is what allows the result to stand on its own in a hearing.

The collector should have no personal connection to you. Your own GP is ideal; a family friend or relative who happens to be a doctor is not, because the impartiality is the whole point.

We ship to your nominated practitioner anywhere we can post to, and the sample is analysed by the same accredited Australian laboratory as one collected in the clinic. The collector rule is unchanged: a nominated medical professional, and not a friend or relative.

International postage is $55, and it covers the outbound journey only. We cannot prepay the return from another country. Postal products, tracking options and the rules on what may be prepaid from abroad differ everywhere, and a label bought in Australia is frequently one a foreign post office will not accept — so rather than sell you a return leg that may not work, we do not sell one at all. Any customs or import charge raised when the kit arrives is set by the destination country and payable there.

The sample must be posted by the doctor, not by you. If it passes through your hands the seals may well remain intact — but intact seals are not the test. The other side needs only to argue that the kit could have been interfered with before it reached the laboratory, and that argument is very difficult to answer once the sample has been in the donor's possession. Chain of custody is about being able to demonstrate that tampering was not possible, not merely that it did not happen.

Allow for transit in both directions when a court date is fixed — the 5–7 business days turnaround runs from the laboratory receiving the sample, not from the day it is collected. Allow 7–15 business days each way overseas, so an international collection is realistically a month from order to result. International payments use SWIFT code CTBAAU2S, quoting your order ID as the reference.

Inside Australia, the return is prepaid. The kit contains a return-addressed, prepaid satchel. Your practitioner seals the sample in it and lodges it — there is nothing to buy and nothing for you to bring.

Overseas, the return is yours to arrange. The kit contains a plain envelope printed with our laboratory's return address and no stamps on it. That envelope is what tells your practitioner where the sample goes; it is not paid postage. Take it to the appointment with the rest of the kit.

We strongly recommend buying a trackable satchel locally — from your own post office or courier — and asking your practitioner to post the sample back in that instead, with our address copied across from the envelope we supplied. Ordinary mail is cheaper and it is the wrong economy here: a sample that cannot be shown to have travelled under tracking is a sample whose journey the other side can question, and that is an argument nobody wants to be answering about a result they have paid for. Keep the tracking number and email it to us when it is lodged.

• Do not open the sealed sample pouch. It is one-way by design. Whatever it travels inside, the pouch itself stays sealed from the collection appointment until the laboratory opens it.
• Do not post it yourself. The practitioner lodges it, not the donor — the chain of custody is the reason the result stands up.
• Declare it honestly on any customs form as a hair sample for laboratory analysis, of no commercial value. It is not a restricted item anywhere we post to, and a vague declaration is what gets a parcel held.

Hair is stable at room temperature and does not degrade in the post, so a slow return leg costs you time and not your result. If anything about the return is unclear, call (03) 9380 5434 before the appointment rather than after it.

Remote collection exists because some people genuinely cannot travel, not because it is better. In person, questions get answered as they arise — by a team of AHPRA-registered allied health professionals who collect these samples routinely, rather than a GP reading the protocol for the first time. It also avoids the kit fee and the GP's consultation fee, and it is faster.

The kit carries detailed guidelines and a checklist, so offsite collections go through smoothly in the great majority of cases. Where an error at an offsite collection does mean a retest, that retest is at the donor's cost.

Once we hold the completed documents, the sealed sample and payment, analysis proceeds. Results are normally ready within 5–7 business days of receipt.

Delays almost always trace to the same four causes: the donor was not properly identified, a document was unsigned, the sample was sealed incorrectly, or the testing fee has not yet cleared. Your GP's checklist covers the first three.

The fourth is the one worth planning around. Analysis does not begin until payment clears, and a bank transfer can take several days — longer from overseas. If a court date is fixed, pay as early as you can rather than on the day the sample is posted.

Results arrive by email listing substances detected and their concentrations. The laboratory identifies substances; it does not interpret them. If you need to know what the numbers mean for your case, that is our expert interpretation service, at an additional fee.