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 by trackable international satchel to your nominated practitioner, 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.

You need to bring a return trackable envelope to the appointment. We cannot supply one, because postal services and their tracking options differ by country, and a sealed forensic sample should travel trackable. If your doctor prefers to buy their own satchel, that is between you and them.

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. International payments use SWIFT code CTBAAU2S, quoting your order ID as the reference.

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.